A Simple Yellow Ribbon
by Kavi Leighanna
Summary: The holiday season is exactly what they need to see how far they've come. 2nd in Tie a Yellow Ribbon Series. Follows "What is and Isn't Mine".
1. Chapter 1

**December 1, 2014**

Maria presses herself against her massive office doors with a relieved sigh. It's barely 1 and she already feels wrung out. It's stupid, really. She's dealt with much worse, dealt with crazier days and certifiably crazy people, but she can't say she's wholly sure how to deal with this.

This being a bunch of disgustingly rich shareholders and her well-meaning personal assistant. Actually, that's not wholly true either. She knows exactly how to deal, with the shareholders. SHIELD's bureaucracy has at least helped her there. Henry, well, she learned long ago to pick her battles. He's too good to fire and she can deal with the Santa's village that is Henry's carefully patrolled territory so long as he continues to be her pit bull. At least for the next 25 days.

She pushes off the door and kicks off her heels, lamenting for just a moment the fact that Stark Industries requires a business dress she has only ever employed during the most ridiculous of political evenings. Her stockings don't make a sound as she pads across the plush carpet and pulls up short as she rounds the desk. The coffee isn't really a surprise.

The candy cane is.

It's not the first time she's been left these little things. She's too damn good at both her job and intelligence gathering not to know who's at least partially responsible for these little gifts. She and Steve are close - terrifyingly close, closer than be should, even if she's ignoring the new feeling of intimacy that's threaded through their friendship since the tabloids printed that got damn article about their trip to the market - and he's lectured her more than once on how hard she works. The fact that she knows he's not saying it out of any masculine domination and is merely trying to get her to take a break from her 90-hour work weeks is the only thing that's kept her from punching his rather impressive jaw.

The candy cane, however, doesn't fit with the muffins and sandwiches that have been the staple. She can't say the note is exactly his style either, but the slanted writing is definitely his.

_Call me_.

Her heart jumps into her throat. She can't help it. Her gut churns irrationally - it's Steve, even his worst shouldn't make her so anxious - and her fingers tremble hard enough to piss her off. It's just a candy cane asking her to do something she does every other day. But this feels different. Not intimate, but significant. Like whatever he wants to talk about has the potential to send her running and he wants to give her the space to do so.

She is, however, not a coward. She settles in her seat, brushing her fingers over the candy cane as she puts the phone to her ear.

"Hey."

Definitely significant. His tone is wary, almost reluctant. "Hey."

There's a beat and she takes it to lean back. She focuses on the candy cane, on twirling it in her fingers. It's been a long time since she's had a candy cane. When he's not too forthcoming, she rolls her eyes. She can't help it.

"Spit it out, Rogers."

"I have an advent calendar."

"Okay…" What the hell would that have to do with her? She's pretty sure Steve doesn't need her help to eat a piece of chocolate every morning.

"I made it."

That doesn't surprise her either.

"It's things to do really. Natasha made me a list. And I talked to Pepper-"

"Steve."

"I want you to do it with me."

Her breath catches. It's a strange feeling, really. There's no reason it should. They've been spending too much time together, time that she's not stupid enough to think doesn't mean a damn thing. It has meant more than a damn thing, it has meant everything.

But this… This is a recipe for disaster.

"Steve, I-"

She hears the breath he blows out. God, she hates disappointing him. It's just a monumentally bad idea. That much time together, doing simple things, because he's a simple man and not prone to frills, given what she is very, very aware is already brewing between them?

"You know it's not a good idea."

God, she'd been stupid to even humour him, that day and every day beyond. Because at the root, they can't be good together. She's been selfish, clinging to the one good and constant thing in her life while the rest of it feels like it's all tumbling down. And true to form, now it's coming back to bite her in the ass. She doesn't want to hurt him, but what he wants from her all but guarantees that. It always has. She cannot ruin him. She won't. And she won't give either of them a chance to.

"You promised me you wouldn't run."

She sucks in a deep breath. She remembers that day so vividly, his hands on her hips, hers on his face. She remembers the impulse, the emotion, the the yearning that had spread through her chest as she'd looked at the damn picture, as she tried to reassure him she didn't hate him. She remembers the look in his eyes too, the banked heat and sparking determination. She hears that determination in his voice now.

It should scare her.

It does scare her.

It also thrills her.

"You knew."

Because she's not blind or stupid and she can't say he's really been hiding it. "Yes."

He waits a moment, like he's letting it sink in. Then, "How about we make a deal?"

She waits, the candy cane heavy in her hand.

"You get veto power."

"What?" she asks on a laugh.

"Veto power," he repeats. "We take it one day at a time and you can always say no."

Her heart hammers, trying to escape her ribs.

"All you have to do is ask," he tells her. "If - when it gets too much, you say the word, okay?"

She twists the candy cane in her fingers. "Steve-"

"Maria."

She knows that quiet conviction. Her mouth all but snaps shut. She wonders if he's heard the way her teeth click.

"I want to try." His voice is quiet, but the underlying tone is solid, significant. "I want you to give us a chance. But if you need a break, you ask and it happens."

He means it, and not just in an abstract way. She could ask him right now, tell him it's a terrible idea - it is - that it's insane - because that's true too - and he would listen. She'd disappoint him, but he wouldn't push any harder and he wouldn't hold the past months and everything they've meant against her.

She can't make the words form.

He is patient, has been patient while she's let them dance in this limbo where she pretends they're just really good friends and she doesn't see the heat flare in his eyes when she stands too close. He's done with limbo.

And it's not like this is particularly new or different as a routine. They spend a ridiculous amount of time together in a week, and there are many nights, the ones where they don't see each other after work, where they talk and text until one of them passes out. She can't count the number of times he's stayed up with her during her bouts of insomnia. She can acknowledge that at the base of it, it wouldn't be much of a change.

The intent, however. Well, that's more complicated.

"Think about it," he says quietly. "Think about it and call me tomorrow."

He knows she will.

"And Maria?"

She hums her acknowledgement, wary of the smile she can hear in his voice.

"Try not to chew through your lip."

He hangs up on her exasperated growl.

But later that night, some stupid movie flashing on her television, Maria opens her candy cane and wonders what else he has planned.

* * *

><p><em>Okay! For those of you who don't know the drill, welcome to my annual Christmas fic! 25 chapters over 25 days. Sometimes I win, sometimes, like the last 2 years, I have failed to complete the fic on time. I'm hoping this year for the former, but. <em>

_A chapter a day is the usual goal. If I miss a day, you're likely to get two or three in a 24 hour period while I catch up, depending on how far behind I am. The goal is to update every day by 10AM, but as a warning, you're more likely to get the update via AO3 or Tumblr than here, unfortunately. I'm getting into bad habits of not actually cross posting here and just leaving everything on AO3. _

_Reviews are love. I wish there was a like button 'cause I almost like that better. _

_But most importantly, enjoy!_


	2. Chapter 2

**December 2, 2014**

She doesn't call.

Not that he'd really expected her to. By this point, he likes to think that he knows Maria pretty well and he knows he'd sent her into a panic. Well, panic was a bit dramatic, but it doesn't take a genius to know that he'd pushed against her boundaries.

It was a careful and calculated move he'd been thinking about for months. Hell, he'd been thinking about her for months, about the cold, standoffish agent he'd met on the helicarrier and the softer, warmer woman underneath. He isn't entirely sure why she'd deemed him worthy to see below that layer of ice, but he's vowed to himself more times than he can count not to sully that.

And that includes pushing too hard.

He can't help himself, in some respects. He's always been a little reckless, always been ready to push the envelope and jump into things he thinks may not bode well for him. But he's also learned that sometimes those are risks that are necessary, both for himself and for others. Plus, he'd pulled off a one-man-mission behind enemy lines to save Bucky. There's no way wooing Maria could be anywhere near that hard.

Then again, he thinks, as he faces her massive office doors, at least with the Nazis he'd known what he was in for.

Here, there are a lot of unknowns. He knows that she's probably already come up with a couple dozen good reasons why she shouldn't do this advent calendar with him. She probably has completely logical reasons for why things won't work out between them. He's not wholly sure he can combat all of that.

What he does have on his side is his knowledge of her. He knows her radio silence isn't meant to be rude or deliberate. He knows, now, that she's not cold enough to just cut communication and he knows he's put her on edge. A scared rabbit, though she'd kill him for the metaphor. He's taking a chance even being here and he hadn't needed the stern, dry look from Henry to put two and two together.

And yet.

He sucks in a deep breath and knocks.

Her voice rings out hard and clear and definitely irritated. He grins despite himself as he pushes the door open and finds her buried in paperwork. Some things, he thought, never changed.

She looks up as he takes a seat in front of her desk. His stomach warms at her involuntary smile, even as he sees the way she reflexively straightens her files. She's nervous, and while he'd normally think that a bit strange, he can't help but think maybe this time it works in his favour.

Maria is only ever nervous when she cares.

"Steve."

"Maria."

"What are you doing here?"

There are a million answers. All of them good, some of them snarky.

"I'm here for you."

The surprise flits through her eyes, along with a healthy dose of mistrust, just before her gaze drops back to her desk. And there, he thinks, is the real ticket. There, he thinks, is the real reason she hadn't called him, despite the fact that he had put the ball firmly in her court. It hurts to see, of course, because the idea that Maria doesn't see herself as worthy tears him up inside. And he's known for a while, despite the fact that he's pretty sure it's something she keeps reigned in. Except, she'd shown up in his hospital room concerned she'd made the wrong decision; concerned he blamed her for it.

For all of her admirable female independence, Maria Hill needs to be wooed.

And he's terrified to do it. He's put the cogs in motion and it's on him now, but he's so, so scared. Maria means so much to him, has come to mean so much to him, and he knows that doing this, pushing her, wooing her, could end in catastrophic explosions that will make the Valkyrie and the Chitauri invasion look like training games.

He is terrified.

He also thinks she is and will be so totally worth it.

"Steve-"

"There's a great hot chocolate place fifteen minutes from here," he says, bowling over her. She glares. He ignores it. "They're actually famous for their gelato, but I've always wanted to try their hot chocolate."

"You don't need me for that."

Since she's not playing around the bush, he doesn't either. He leans forward, waits until she locks her eyes on his again. "No. But I'd like you to come with me."

The simple sentence has its desired effect. She glances away again and he's pretty sure he's imagining the blush that stains her cheeks.

"Just hot chocolate," he says quietly.

"Like you gave me just a candy cane yesterday?"

His lips twitch. "Touché, Lieutenant."

And if she says no he will honour that, he tells himself. He will leave her to her paperwork and walk away. But then he sees her suck in a deep breath and square her shoulders.

"Just hot chocolate."

It's a tentative answer at best, but the grin that spreads across his face is not. She's surprisingly shy as he helps her with her coat – something he's done a million times and she's stopped arguing about. They don't touch as they head through Stark's halls, not even on the elevator where they stand silently in opposite corners. But once they hit the street he reaches for her. In part, he can't help it. In part, he just wants to touch her.

He always wants to touch her.

He does so again once they're in the cab, reaching for her hand and cradling it between his.

"Hey," he says, waits for her eyes to meet his. She's trying for an impenetrable mask, but unfortunately for her he's way past that.

"It's just me," he reminds her quietly. "Just Steve."

Her shoulders slump and her hand tightens in his.

"Isn't that the problem?"

"Not really," he argues. "We've done this before and no one's died."

"Never like this," she points out quietly. "Never… Never with intent."

"You're scared."

She doesn't jump. Her face barely changes. "Aren't you?"

"Yes." Because lying to her has never worked in his favour and he is so, so bad at it.

"Then why?"

He snorts, because the answer is more than a little bit cliché. Then again, he is Captain America. "Because life's too short to let people go about their lives without knowing they're important."

She watches him for a moment, and he doesn't think she realizes how much of a tell that is. He doesn't think she realizes that he can see the fear blaze through her, that he can see the courage it takes for her to straighten her shoulders.

"What if what you want breaks us?"

His heart thrills. He's been waiting months for this conversation. "What if it doesn't? What if it hasn't?"

Because it would be just like Maria to pretend that everything between them is as it was before. It would be just like her to think that things between them haven't grown a whole new layer, that the way she curls into him during a movie or the way he seeks her out when he's feeling particularly unsettled doesn't mean a damn thing. It would be just like her not to want the humanity of a connection with another person, wouldn't want the weakness.

Even if they both know that's a bald-faced lie.

"Is that why you didn't call?" he asks.

Her eyes dart away and his stomach flips. Nail on the head, he thinks even as she shrugs.

"The morning makes things look different," she says quietly.

He sighs, reaches over so he has both hands in his. "Look, this is terrifying for me too, okay? Because you mean so much to me, Maria, and if this crashes and burns…"

He can't finish that statement. He won't. Because it will not crash and burn, he promises himself. It's not a promise he will make out loud to her, not one he will voice but dammit, he has lost too much to lose her too.

"But you want to try."

"Of course I want to try," he tells her fiercely.

She reaches up, presses her palm against his cheek. He can see by the flicker of surprise it had been more than a little impulsive. He's coming to really like impulsive Maria. "Steve. I'm not worth this."

He releases one of her hands to wrap the other gently around the nape of her neck. "Of course you are. Maria – of course you are."

She lets his hand bring her head closer, lets his forehead press against hers. Her eyes flutter closed, her fingers curling against his cheek. "You're the only one who thinks so."

He is not, not by a long shot and it hurts so much that she believes it. He threads his hand into her hair and tilts her chin, holds her there and makes his intent obvious. His breath catches when she doesn't move away, when her eyes open for a moment.

"I'm not," he says as his mouth brushes against hers. She doesn't move away but he hears her breath hitch in her chest. Her hand is tight in his, the only sign of the turmoil she's made so obvious to him. He doesn't want to push, not really, but God, she's here and she's close, and he savours having her so close for one more beat before he changes the angle and brushes his mouth against her cheek instead.

"I need you to promise me you'll try," he says into her temple instead. He hears her breathe, slow and deep.

"You don't know what you're getting into," she tells him, like a last warning. "You don't know what you're setting yourself up for."

His chuckle is low and just a bit dark. He feels the shiver drill down her spine. "But I know what I want," he whispers into her ear, infuses it with just a bit of determination, a bit of steel. "And I want you."

There's another shiver, another tremble and her hand leaves his to clench in the sleeve of his coat. "Okay," she whispers.

He presses his forehead against hers again, can't stop himself given the emotions that are swirling through him. There are so many promises on the tip of his tongue, promises to make it worth it, promises not to break her, but he doesn't say any of it. Instead he tugs her as close as he can get her until the cab pulls to a stop. He gets out first, reluctantly, and holds out his hand. When she takes it, when she lets him help her out of the cab and onto the street, he finds his breath coming faster as he looks down at her.

She offers him a smile that shakes around the edges. "I believe you promised me hot chocolate."

His smile doesn't shake at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**December 3, 2014**

Maria bounces on her toes a little. The December air is chilly, even through her coat. She's early, but the idea of Steve picking her up at her apartment door had seemed a irrationally intimate. A lot like something she isn't quite ready for.

She's also on edge. His message this morning had merely told her to be ready by 7PM and to dress for the outdoors. It's left her a mess of useless nerves both because she wanted him to cancel and save them both the drama and because for the first time in a long time she's actually looking forward to what she has to call a date.

A date.

With Steve.

It's the point of his advent calendar, she knows; a sort of pre-planned date system that she can always back away from. He's put control in her hands, so very much control and she's pretty sure that's the only thing that makes it a thrill rather than anxiety inducing.

But waiting… She's not very good at waiting.

Then she hears the sound of his bike. He slips into a spot in front of her building and offers her a grin. It's the broad one that says he's so very pleased to see her. She's not a woman prone to blushing but she can feel the way her cheeks heat. How could they do anything else when he's looking at her like there's nothing else in the world that could ever be as important as her.

"Steve, it's winter," she says in lieu of a greeting. "That thing should be in a garage."

It's a consistent argument, so he doesn't take offense. He merely holds out a hand to her, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek when she takes it and he tugs her closer. "I drove through snowy Germany on a bike."

"Germany is not New York."

"Of course not. The roads here are perfectly safe and ploughed. And I don't generally get shot at."

She hates his smirk just a little.

"It's perfectly safe, Maria."

Safety is not really her issue. New York is cold.

"And you're in back. I'll be taking most of the wind." He's still smirking, like he's read her mind and she just barely resists the urge to smack him. She knows he can tell. "Now come on, we're going to be late."

She pauses then, bites her lip. Reluctance sneaks in, fear and the reminder that they are different. But to his credit, Steve just waits, her hand still in his, not putting pressure on her either way. It's his patience and the underlying current of persistence in his face that has her mouth twitching at the corner. Then she takes a step forward and lets him help her onto the bike.

"You never did tell me where we're going," she says as she fixes the helmet on her head.

"Nope," he answers as he wraps her arms around his waist, exactly like every other time she's taken a ride on his motorcycle. But this time it does feel different. It feels careful, intimate like she'd been trying to avoid. Her hands flatten over his stomach and she finds it hard to breathe, even though there's no way she can actually feel his abs through his clothes.

"Hang on," he tells her, grips her wrists to wrap her tighter. A moment later, she buries her head in the back of his coat to battle the wind as they weave through the evening New York traffic. He feels good; he always feels good. She inhales slowly, tightens her arms and lets herself drown in the moment, just a little. Because it feels nice, being pressed up against Steve Rogers. He hasn't flinched all night, even when she'd paused, even when there's no way it wasn't obvious she was re-thinking her agreement to come. He hadn't rolled his eyes knowingly and hadn't pushed her to make a decision either way. He'd waited.

Which, she knows is how she works. It's how she's always worked. She makes people wait, makes them work, for her trust, for her friendship, for her. And sooner or later, she knows, they leave. The work she requires is never worth it. She's never worth it. She finds herself burying her face tighter into his back, hiding or trying to burrow into him, she's not sure. She feels him reach down to squeeze her wrists.

God she's going to hurt him. Even Steve Rogers doesn't have infinite amounts of patience and she knows she's going to try every ounce he has and then ask for more.

She's not particularly proud of it. She's proud of her independence, she's proud of her work ethic, she's proud of a lot of things that weave into how much work she takes. She's set her priorities that way and she's good with that. It's her bed. But it does make her lonely – which Phil had very carefully and deliberately pointed out is different than being alone. She's come to terms with that and adjusted accordingly.

"Hey."

Her head comes up. They've stopped in front of Rockefeller Centre, the crowds milling around the giant, unlit tree. She breathes in slowly, deliberately. She still hates crowds. But he climbs off the bike and reaches for her. She lets him pull her off, pulls her helmet from her head and leaves it tucked into a saddlebag.

"Clint mentioned they make a whole show of lighting the tree," he says as he tugs her into the crowd. His hand is still wrapped around hers and she chews the inside of her cheek. She's full of contradictory feelings about that. "I've seen it all lit up, but I've never been around for the show."

A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. Despite her generally cynical disposition, she can't say she hates his eagerness. It's a bit adorable and heart-warming to see him throw himself so completely into something as ridiculous as a simple tree-lighting ceremony.

"You know they air it on TV, right?"

He flashes her that eager excited grin. "Not the same."

That doesn't mean she wouldn't prefer it. Crowds suffocate her, make her feel like she has no space. But she's forgotten how big and broad Steve is, how he makes room for himself and consequently, for her. They claim a spare square of concrete and Maria expects to feel the crowd closing in on her. Instead, she watches Sara Bareilles, Cyndi Lauper and even Tony Bennett perform, and feels herself lean into the strong support of him. His hand comes up to her hip, rests there without feeling like a restraint. It feels nice, like just being out here with him, enjoying a simple tradition and the holiday spirit slowly taking shape in New York.

The countdown is loud with the whole crowd, but Maria feels like she can only hear Steve murmuring each number just above the top of her head. His fingers tighten on her hip in anticipation. It's such a boyish movement, such a simple and instinctual reaction and she feels her heart begin to thump hard and loud in her chest. Her anticipation spikes with his until the tree flashes on, giant and utterly, breathtakingly beautiful.

She feels and hears his breath catch behind her. She can understand why. It's been a long time since she let herself stop and take in the holiday season. It's been a long time since she's basked in the beauty. She turns, intending to tell him such, but when she catches sight of his face the words, gratitude and a sentimentality she doesn't normally express, die in her throat. He is transfixed by the tree, his eyes sparkling in the flickering lights. He looks awed and amazed and so open, vulnerable, almost childlike.

"You've seen the tree," she says softly, because she needs to break this moment before she does something stupid.

"Yes," he replies almost breathless. "But not like this. It's different like this."

Her breath catches this time, hard and fast in her chest. He's right. All too often she walks past this square in this season and barely pays it any mind. But he'd made her stop, made her slow and as her eyes try and take in both his face and the tree at the same time, she thinks it's beautiful.

He reaches for her – such an unconscious move, like he's keeping himself grounded – and it starts to solidify. Maybe this isn't all about "them" after all. It's a part because is palm is burning against her hip and his front is strong and solid against her back, but he's also a man who wants to celebrate the season. And he doesn't want to do it alone.

So she lets herself turn, tuck into his side so she can wrap her own arm around his waist. Even if she can't give him what he's ultimately looking for, she thinks she can give him these moments. And she's willing to bet she'll get her own along the way.


	4. Chapter 4

**December 4, 2014**

She wakes with a smile on her face. It's not something as unheard of as Tony likes to think, but even she has to admit it's been a while since it's felt quite like this.

The weird part is that nothing is really different. She goes into work; answers inane and idiotic emails from so-called security experts; sits in meetings that she's sure should qualify her for a free lifetime supply of ibuprofen; and just barely resists the urge to pull her gun on a bunch of suits that are too clueless to be afraid of her. Even Henry dropping a sandwich on her desk – complete with a doodle of her yelling at a tableful of underlings, a caption in Steve's quick scrawl: 'To keep you from getting hangry' and sometimes she could just slap him – is par for her regular day.

It takes her a while to figure out that while things aren't really different, they certainly feel different. There's a hum beneath her skin that isn't new, but is certainly more pronounced. There's a smile that dances in the corner of her mouth whenever her mind flashes back to his face as he'd watched the tree light up in the dark city night. She remembers all of that emotion, the urge to just hang onto him in the maelstrom he'd so obviously experienced in the wake of that holiday beauty. But at the core, she knows, nothing's really changed. It was all there long before now. It's how they're both exhibiting it, the change in the way they show it that has changed.

And she can't honestly say she doesn't like it.

It's a thought that carries her through the day and a thought that brings out her wide smile when his name shows up on her caller ID that evening. She hits answer the same time she opens her front door.

"Hi."

"Hey," he returns. "How was your day?"

She tamps down on the irrational laughter that bubbles up in her throat as she locks her door and kicks off her heels. Her keys go in the adorable bowl that had been an apartment warming gift from Natasha. "Normal."

He makes a sound of acknowledgement before he asks, "What are your favourite holiday traditions?"

She sighs, flipping on her kitchen light with an elbow. If she's lucky, something in what Phil always called her styrofoam temple will be edible. "I thought your calendar was already full."

"It is," he answers easily, "But I want your input."

She closes her eyes for a moment, just briefly. It's not that she doesn't want to contribute to his advent calendar, but the only tradition that matters is one that is too close to her heart to share just yet. Even with the new layer Steve is determined to build on their relationship

"I don't know," she says rooting around in her fridge and making a mental note to toss the Chinese when her feet aren't screaming at her. "The surprise is part of the fun."

There's a beat, then two before he says, "Maria, you hate surprises."

She straightens from her fridge search with a blink. She does hate surprises. It's a well-known, established fact. There are agents with scars from that particular lesson. But as she stands there, trying to figure out how tired and bloody absent-minded she must be to have uttered those words aloud, she also realizes that when it comes to him, it's also the God's-honest truth.

She trusts him not to go overboard. She trusts that he will stand by his promise to give her space when she needs it. She trusts him to pick things that she'll enjoy as much as he does. She trusts him.

A smile stretches slow and soft across her face. "Surprise me, Steve."

He makes a noise that makes heat flare low in her stomach, that makes her shiver pleasantly. She's not oblivious to why this is a big deal, to why it would leave his hand probably clenching against his thigh - she's noticed the twitch when he wants to reach for her. But he shouldn't be surprised either, she thinks. He's seen her at her worst, broken after nightmares and floundering in the wake of exploding helicarriers. He's seen her on a good day, when she's warm and soft on a night in. He is one of a handful that has seen her at her most vulnerable.

And maybe, she thinks, that's why he believes this is a good idea. Maybe that's why 'them' makes so much sense to him when she can't seem to wrap her head around it. Because to him, he knows all of her dark corners.

"I can do that," he says and Maria shivers again at the promise in his words. "Yeah I… I can do that."

Her grin is wide and thrilled and she is so very glad Steve's not around to see it in person. It bolsters hope, she thinks, in him and in her. And in them.

So as she curls up on the couch with her phone, lets him yammer on in her ear about the old man he helped across the street and the college kids who had all but begged him to throw around a football in Central Park, her eyes drift slowly closed, warm in her trust of Steve, her memory of a glowing tree and the anticipation for what's coming next.

* * *

><p><em>Shorter chapter, I know, but this is another one of those situations where I didn't want to take away from what was actually happening.<em>

_Also, tomorrow's might be late. The muse wants to write Monday's chapter, so we may be bumping things around a bit on this end._


	5. Chapter 5

December 5

Steve had gone into this advent calendar plan with the knowledge that everything is on him. It's not a question of Maria's dedication, not the commitment she's made, but everything to do with the fact that she's not all that open with how she feels. And it most certainly doesn't mean that Maria doesn't feel.

"Looks like some deep thoughts there, Cap."

He doesn't jump, despite the fact that her presence in the common areas of Avengers' Tower. is a genuine surprise. He smiles in greeting, sure he will never get used to seeing her so casually dressed.

"Nothing to worry about," he promises as he stands and heads for her. He slides his hand from her shoulder to her wrist, unable to stop himself from wrapping strong fingers around her deceptively delicate wrist. "You're not supposed to be here."

She chuckles. "Let's call it Pepper's holiday cheer. I had an idea. Get your coat."

Steve feels his heart thump hard in his chest even as he reaches for the jacket he'd tossed over the couch. "A kidnapping, Lieutenant?"

"Emergency extraction," she replies, a smile dancing around her lips.

"Where are we going?"

Her smile turns secretive and, he thinks, it's worth everything. "You'll see."

He cares less about where they're going when she slips his hands into his on the sidewalk and starts off along the street. She wanders along in a way that isn't generally Maria's style. Yet part of him doesn't want to ask any more questions, doesn't want to break this spell or whatever has her next to him as Maria and not Agent Hill.

They pause at a red light and he finds himself looking dazedly down at her as she tugs him into her. He goes, of course, settles his hands around her waist and watches a strange nervous concern flicker over her face.

"If we're going to do this," she says, squeezing his arms. "We do it together."

"Do what together? The calendar?" he asks, his hands tightening as the crowd surges around them, crossing on their green.

"All of it," she replies. "This won't work if only one of us is working at it."

"Maria?"

She smiles up at him. "You want us and you can't do it by yourself."

Everything stutters to a stop and narrows to her. His ears ring, her words bouncing around in his skull.

"So I have a tradition to add. Unless you had another plan."

"No," he says, almost too fast. He sees the mirth light in her eyes. "No. You said you didn't have traditions."

"Okay, it's a game we used to play with the recruits," she says, sliding his hands from her hips for the mad dash across the street. She tugs him along then, down the sidewalk and further away from the Tower.

"Actually, Clint used to use it as an initiation trick," Maria goes on, her hand snugly in his. He knows he's harping on it, but he can't help it. Five days in and it's the first time he's really felt like she's with him in this, like she's actually trying to make the strides she'd teased him with only a couple of days before. He's barely able to belief that she's taken the leap, let alone how easily she's strolling down the streets of New York with her hand in his.

"It's kind of reverse pick pocketing."

And now he's intrigued. Beyond intrigued actually because he's always loved watching her work. It strikes him that she would have worked her way up, that maybe once she was a spy almost as good as Natasha. Well, as good as second best could be when compared to Natasha Romanoff. And this is his chance. So he moves with her when she tugs him to the side and pulls a handful of bills from her purse. She divides them in half, handing the one to him.

"Your mission, Captain Rogers, is to give all of this cash to people who need it without letting them know you're doing it."

He blinks at her for a moment, even as he reaches for the cash. "You know undercover is really not my strong point."

And she smiles again, this magical think that makes him feel like 'falling in love with Maria Hill' is no longer a question.

"Consider it a challenge."

It zings through him, fast and hot, challenge and competition and Maria. "What's in it for me?"

She sways into him, humming slightly. "Winner picks dinner. Where and what. No veto."

He leans in, finds her cheek beneath his mouth before he really registers what he's doing. He's going to lose, he knows, by a landslide, but God, he doesn't care. He sees the branch she's holding out to him, what she's showing him and telling him. So he doesn't care if he loses because she's here, with him, all the way.

"Deal."

She cups his elbow, her eyes glazed and surprised as he pulls back and it makes him smile to see how much he affects her. It's magical, what she's showing him now and it bolsters him. It reminds him that part of what he likes about Maria is that she refuses to be predictable. So he does not care that she beats him by forty-five minutes and chirps him the entire time before he gives away his last dollar. This is the Maria that makes everything easy and emphasizes her competence and skills, but highlights the woman too.

And at the end of the night, it takes everything in him not to kiss her as he loads her into a cab.


	6. Chapter 6

**December 6, 2014**

When Maria opens the door for Steve, she expects a wide smile and the warm pleasure that usually infuses his face when he looks at her. The smile is there, but it's not quite the full wattage she's used to and the pleasure in his face is overlaid by something darker. Sadder. He's still warm and easy, handing her the coffee he always brings, slips his hand down her arm in a gesture that is so wholly Steve she wants to believe that everything's okay. But as they wander through their market, nothing feels quite right.

He's a good guy, of course, so he's personable, if quiet. He buys his fruits and vegetables, even the strawberry jam that she knows he keeps in his fridge just for her. He holds her hand like it's all normal, but it's not. The emotion that's rattling her has her crowding against his back, slipping an arm around his waist. He never pulls away, but he doesn't lean into her either.

It's a bad day.

It makes her anxious and nervous. It makes her wonder if she's triggered his bad day, if he's already decided the previous night had been a flash. It makes her wonder if he's already changed his mind.

She toys idly with a pair of bright purple mittens, watching him carefully out of the corner of her eye. He's doing the same though a little more blatantly, like he's checking to see if she's still with him. As if she wants to.

"Hey."

He actually startles her, that's how disturbing it is. She tries to smile even though she knows it doesn't quite reach her eyes. She doesn't feel as bad when his doesn't either. It's killing her, knowing he doesn't want to be here, that it's not good.

"You'd look good in purple."

Her cheeks flame and for the first time it actually annoys her. He shouldn't be able to do that. She doesn't want him to be able to make her blush when he's about to tell her it's all a really bad idea.

"Buy them," he says quietly.

Maybe it's petty, that she puts them down, but she's not in the mood. The next booth has gingerbread men, complete with sprinkles. She has a weakness for gingerbread. They both know it.

"Two please."

She sighs, hating the way it feels like he's trying to placate her, like he's trying to buy things to make this better. Or easier. She still accepts the cookie, of course, even bites off its head. Ginger bursts across her tongue as she turns and starts away.

"Maria, I -"

"Not here." She can't do this here. Whatever it is he wants to do – break up with her, tell her he's leaving – she doesn't want to sully their market. So she walks until they hit the park on the other side, to a bench along the path. He settles beside her, a little awkwardly but still close and for the first time she can't honestly say she knows how to read him.

"Just say it, Steve," she finally says.

"Say-"

"That you're done."

"What?"

She rolls her eyes and curls a leg beneath her so she faces him. "You suck at lying. So just say it."

"Maria no." He reaches out, wraps those long, slender fingers around her wrist. "It's- No."

She looks up at him, bites off the arm of her gingerbread man. "You wouldn't be the first."

Then he's cupping her cheek. "I'm having a bad day."

She swallows her cookie, forced to watch his face and everything in it. Every honest thing in his eyes and his face and what he wants to tell her. What he can't voice. So she sighs.

"I know. We didn't have to come."

"Maria." Now he gets his hand around the back of her neck, pulls her in. His forehead knocks against hers and she feels that desperation in the grip. "I have bad days. I wanted to see you."

She's not naïve enough to think she makes the bad days better, per se, but her shoulders slump anyway, her leg dropping as she shuffles into his side. He wraps his arms around her, tugging her legs across his lap.

"I thought you were doing better," she says, resting her head against his shoulder.

He tucks his cheek against her head. "I am. I thought you trusted me."

"I do," she says immediately. "I just… after last night I thought..."

She trails off, and he squeezes her leg, wants to know more.

"You thought what, Maria?"

His voice is low, and she shakes her head as she fights off the shiver. She hates the feeling churning in her gut, guilt and worry and the vulnerability she hates. But his fingers tuck under her chin, tilt her face up to his.

"Thought what?"

Her heart thumps. Hard. It's the same look that had been on his face the night before. Intensity and naked want. "This."

His thumb strokes her chin, tugs her bottom lip open just a little. She swallows as she watches him, as she absorbs everything there. Today, she knows with painful clarity, has nothing to do with her. He can't look at her like he is and have changed his mind about wanting her.

"Steve," she whispers because she can see in his face that he wants to cross a line. A line she naturally pulls back from.

"Maria."

Then he's brushing his mouth over hers once, twice. Her stomach flips at the first touch, her head tilting to give him better access. He takes the invitation, leaning into her and the kiss. The last thing Maria coherently thinks is that there's no way he's only kissed Romanoff since 1945. Sure, he's a little sloppy, but he's holding her head in place and he isn't hesitant with his mouth or his hands. She fists one of hers in his jacket, cold fingers scrabbling a little to get purchase.

She's the one who traces her tongue over his bottom lip, who pushes the kiss deeper. He tastes like gingerbread, of course and she takes one more generous taste before she pulls back. They're both panting when they pull back, when she curls in and presses her forehead to the side of his neck.

"That."

He chuckles, his hand slipping up her waist, then back down again. He tucks a finger into the belt loop of her jeans.

"Hey," she murmurs, raising her head. "Steve. If you're having a bad day, we don't…"

"This is important."

"Not like this. You gave me veto power when things get overwhelming, when it becomes too much. Today it was too much for you."

"Maria."

"No." She glances down at her hand, still clenching his shirt. "The only way this works is if we can both veto. If we can both do what we need to do when everything gets too much."

She glances back down at her hands. "So. We'll finish shopping and go home. No dinner tonight."

"Maria-"

She's already moving, already shifting her body weight. Already standing. "Steve."

His finger is still caught in her belt loop and he tugs. "I didn't want to ruin today."

"You didn't," she promises, laughs a little at the sheer idea. A first kiss that, well, had rocked her world. Yeah, her day certainly didn't feel ruined anymore.

She reaches for his hand, tugs him up. "Come on, soldier. Let's get you home."

* * *

><p><em>Behind, behind, behind... <em>

_I'm trying. I promise. I never like playing catch up but my weekend was an absolute mess. _


	7. Chapter 7

**December 7, 2014**

Despite her role as the no-nonsense, practical half of the free world's most powerful couple, Pepper knows she's a romantic at heart. Perhaps a more simple romantic than Tony would like, but she knows she has a soft spot for the sweet and adorable. So when Steve had first approached her, both with the advent calendar idea and his longer-term plan, Pepper had been wholeheartedly on board. Still is, actually. So when that same man shows up in the common area of Avengers Tower on Sunday morning, apology and sadness all over his face, she feels like something is amiss. A something that is all but confirmed when he hands her the two tickets to the New York Symphony she'd had to pull strings to get.

She's not upset with him – she loves the symphony after all and she has the perfect dress to convince Tony to sit beside her in a darkened theatre all evening – but she is worried. Since the look on Steve's face tells her he's not about to be forthcoming with what's going on, Pepper goes to the next best source.

Maria's actually at home and offers Pepper a bit of a bemused smile as she opens the door.

"Aren't you the one always telling me to take days off?" Maria quips, stepping back to let Pepper in.

Pepper brandishes the tickets long enough for Maria to pluck them from her hand.

"What are these?"

"Your date for tonight."

Maria's face barely changes.

"Did you know?" Pepper inquires.

"No. I told Steve to surprise me."

And that surprises Pepper maybe more than she'd like to admit. She likes Maria, genuinely respects the other woman and has no complaints about the work she does – dammit, Maria works harder than Pepper does and it's a little disconcerting at times – but her need for control is more than a bit legendary. Pepper swallows, tries hard not to let her imagination run away with the cold logic she very much enjoys using.

"These are amazing seats."

"I know. Steve gave them back to me an hour ago."

Maria's head comes up at that, a flash of worry and concern Pepper thinks gets buried more out of habit than a genuine mistrust. "He loves the symphony."

Pepper hums. She'd known that, of course, figured he was trying to share it with the woman Pepper is ninety-eight percent sure he's in love with. "He didn't look happy."

Maria's conviction wavers for such a short moment Pepper thinks it might just be in her imagination. Then the former-agent sucks in a deep breath and holds the tickets out again.

"I need you to go tonight," Maria says.

Pepper's brow furrows. "Maria-"

"Pepper."

And Pepper suddenly has a very real idea of how Maria Hill climbed SHIELD's ranks. She orders Tony Stark around without a blink but she can all but feel her knees buckle at Maria's tone.

"I need you to go," Maria says again. "Take your phone with you."

She has a plan, Pepper realizes as she takes the tickets back, tucks them safely in her purse. She's glad to see it, to be honest, because Pepper likes and respects Maria, but she's intensely protective of Steve.

"I'll talk to you later."

Maria nods, just once. "Count on it."

. . . . .

Steve resolutely ignores the knocking on his door. Today, he just can't do it. Today, he just doesn't feel like being the man who is also Captain America. He doesn't want to even risk dealing with fans or groupies or whatever else they're called these days. He just wants to be Steve, not the guy who had saved the world from aliens or a Nazi-era terrorist organization.

Just Steve.

He'd hoped last night that a night on his own would handle whatever had him down – fear, sadness, the tug he gets in his gut when he feels like he should be damn well looking for Bucky, not waiting for his very broken friend to come to him – and he'd wake up feeling at least human, if not happy. Hell, he'd kissed Maria yesterday, a good, real, solid kiss that he can still feel when he closes his eyes but it's not enough.

Today hasn't been any better.

Since he hadn't told Maria about the symphony tickets, he'd figured he could just call, maybe text, talk about favourite holiday memories or something. Something that didn't require him to actually face people. Something that didn't require him to be 'on' for long hours at a time. He doesn't have the strength today.

And he isn't going to give in to whomever – probably Tony, if Pepper told him what's going on – is pounding on his door.

"Rogers, open the damn door."

Maria.

His head comes up and he's half way to the door before he kind of realizes it. Her face is a mask of general irritation as she pushes past him and heads to the kitchen, dropping the takeout bags on his counter. He stands there dumbly as she returns to slam the door and shove him back to the couch. He sits while she brings over dinner, while she settles onto the couch and fixes him with a stare.

"Why didn't you call me?"

"What?"

The bravado drops out of her, leaving her curled around her beef and broccoli – God, he can't stand that dish – poking at it with her chopsticks. "Today's no better and you should have called me."

He could argue with her, tell her that it's fine and he's fine and it's Sunday, come up with some other excuse, but it's Maria. He doesn't want to lie to Maria. So instead, he tries for a nonchalant shrug. "Tomorrow's a new day."

He watches her idly bite off the top of a piece of broccoli. "You had symphony tickets."

"Maria-"

"You love the symphony."

He drops his head back on the couch, lets his eyes flutter closed. "I can't be him today."

He hears her put her food down on the coffee table, feels the couch shift under her weight until she's against his side. Of course she'd get it, this woman who can curl up at his side but has one of the most ruthless reputations he's ever heard. A woman who is necessarily as two-faced as he can be. His arm curls around her reflexively even as he hears her phone unlock.

"So how about you just be Steve?"

He hears the phone dial as his eyes pop open, then Pepper's smooth voice on Maria's speakerphone.

"Ready?" Maria asks.

"Just dimming the lights."

He sighs. "Maria-"

"It won't be like being there," she says, turning up the volume on her phone and muting their end of the conversation. Then she settles the phone on his coffee table. She leaves his arms for a moment, flicks off all but the lights in the kitchen. It backlights his living room and her silhouette as she returns to him. "But at least here you don't have to be anyone you don't want to be."

He sighs, even as he wraps his arm around her again. "I figured this whole thing would be the other way around."

He feels her shrug. "I smart man once told me we shouldn't put ourselves on pedestals where we don't belong. Neither of us are perfect, after all." There's a beat, then two. "And no matter what happens, with us, with the advent calendar, we're friends. Friends don't leave their friends hurting."

Perhaps he'd forgotten that little tidbit, that they were friends above what they were doing. Maria's a good friend, one of the best and as he tugs her closer he feels the sadness lessen just a little. Not because Maria's here, but because she's reminded him that in a time that isn't originally his – not that he doesn't like it here – he has real friends. Real people that stand beside him like the Howling Commandos once had.

Maybe she's not the only one who has to learn she's not alone.


	8. Chapter 8

**December 8, 2014**

Steve's apartment smells like cinnamon. It's the first thought that floats through her head when she uses her key to slip in his front door.

"You're baking?"

His head comes up, his smile that warm, pleasured thing she'd been looking for on Saturday. And isn't that a thought that is just the right side of different. She looks for these moments, these little things that tell her he's not going anywhere. The moments that make her believe, even just for a second, that maybe they can really do this. Together.

"Apple pie," he answers, watching her shed her coat and shoes. "Want to change?"

"I didn't bring anything."

He slips around his counter, then the couch, standing in front of her and settling his palms on her hips. "I can find you something. Even let you borrow my shower if you ask nicely."

She rolls her eyes, lets him tug her in. Inside, she's elated. He looks so much better, so much happier. He looks less like the world is sitting on his shoulders and his shoulders alone. It makes her swallow thickly and his proximity makes her think of his nose brushing against hers just before his kiss.

"Why are you baking?" she murmurs, even as her head tilts up. She can't help herself really. She's been dreaming of that kiss, of the pressure of his mouth against hers. She wants it again, if she's honest, but like this, with him happy and warm and smelling of pie. She doesn't even like pie.

She knows she likes him.

"Pepper has a weakness for apple pie. Or Tony does and he's using Pepper to deflect."

She laughs a little, leaning into him. She can't help herself. "You're better today."

That warm, pleased grin softens and so do those blue eyes women talk about getting lost in. "I just… get lost in my head sometimes."

There's an ease to the way he says it that makes her stomach flip, like the admission is another step in the 'them' he wants to build. "We all do."

He hums, leans into her. His hands come up to her face, thumbs brushing the skin just under her eyes. She knows what's coming next and unlike the first one, with the tinge of sadness mixed in with the taste of gingerbread, everything about this kiss feels warmer. It feels real. She thinks that's what must set her heart into overdrive.

"Thank you," he says when they pull back.

"Hm?"

"For your patience. For bringing me the symphony when I didn't want to go."

Her hand rises to cup his neck and she momentarily laments the fact that she kicked off her heels if only because the extra inch wouldn't make her feel so small. "It's what friends do for friends."

"Friends?"

Oh, he is feeling better. She almost wants to laugh, but her heart is pounding too hard in her chest. "More."

He hums low in his throat and kisses her again. This one is harsher, faster, passionate like she sometimes forgets he is day-to-day. She leans into him, lets him arch her back as his palm pushes into her spine. In moments like these, she does not have doubts.

He rests his forehead against hers when they part and she laughs, a puff of air that makes him smile too.

"So that's a thing now?" she murmurs, still feels more than a little unsettled. It's not her damn fault the man can kiss now is it?

"Had to make up for the first one."

She shakes her head, knocks her forehead against his shoulder. "Not unless you didn't mean it."

His body straightens, stiffens. She looks up and finds his gaze dark and intense. Oh hell.

She's just sucking in a breath, preparing herself for the onslaught of Steve Rogers and hoping she can come out the other end – how the hell does she keep forgetting that he is not an adorable puppy but most definitely a man who knows what he wants? – when the oven beeps. She's both amused and embarrassed by the way she stumbles when he lets her go.

She watches as he pulls the pie plate from the oven and takes a sniff.

"It definitely smells like my mom's."

"Your mom baked?"

It's a stupid question, but she feels a little like she's still trying to get her brain back online.

"Until she got sick." His face turns into something rueful. "Bucky's Ma tried, bless her soul, but it never tasted quite like Mom's."

She wants to offer him something, something like 'nothing ever does', but who is she to pass judgment on what it's like to have a mother that bakes? Hell, she'd learned everything she knew about cooking from Phil when he'd taken pity on her in the Academy. She doesn't even know what it's like to have one parent that cooks, let alone any parent that also bakes.

But she swallows it down, hard and fast because this is neither the time, nor the place. Not with all of his happiness shining out of his every pore. There will come a time, she knows. There always is. There's always that moment where families come up and she has to explain that she never had one. In her experience, men either run or cling tighter.

She's both intrigued and terrified to find out where Steve will fall.

"Maria?"

She shakes herself and smiles. After all, there's no reason to ruin Christmas, and them, just yet.


	9. Chapter 9

**December 9, 2014**

Steve's never really been a heavy sleeper. If it hadn't been an illness it had been the war and then after that, well, he'd certainly made up for it with seventy years in the ice. But it means that he is awake and aware the minute his cell phone jingles. The caller ID makes his heart thump, hard.

"Maria?"

"Steve."

She sounds vaguely confused, like she's not quite fully aware of what's going on. It's not adorable – it totally is – it's disconcerting. "Maria."

There's a sharp intake of breath before she swears. There's a part of him that's amused, sure, but he doesn't like how shaky the word sounds. He's pretty sure she's running her hand through her hair, probably trying to figure out how she'd managed to wake up with the phone pressed to her ear. The picture is as entertaining as it is concerning. She must've been pretty caught up to not realize what she's done.

"Everything okay?" he asks cautiously.

"Yeah." It doesn't sound all that convincing. "Yeah."

"Maria."

"It's nothing," she repeats.

"It's two in the morning."

It's not nothing.

"Steve, seriously, it's-"

"You had a nightmare."

There's an irritated grunt, then silence. He's got it, he knows, even without seeing her. She's called him after a nightmare. His heart swells at the trust it shows. It's something she's never done before. They've talked about things that haunt them, of course, even comforted each other in the aftermath of those terrors, but never has she actually reached out for him when there are streets between them.

He swallows though. When he's there with her, he knows what she needs. A light hand on her back, maybe weaving his fingers with hers, but nothing overwhelming. Nothing suffocating. Little things where she can still make an escape if she so chooses. Little things that don't threaten her belief in her ability to handle this herself. But here, over the phone, he doesn't know what to do.

"Do you want me to-"

"No."

He recoils a bit, can't help himself because she sounds so damn sure. She doesn't want him there.

"Steve, no, it's- It's late."

Or early. "It doesn't matter if you need-"

_Me._

"I'm okay," she says and he tries not to let it hurt. "I'm good, just-" She clears her throat and he swallows, proud and twisted up inside that the sound make her seem embarrassed. "Talk to me."

He swallows. He doesn't want to and they both know it. He wants to put some pants on and break too many laws getting to her place despite the illogic of it. He's not a words person, he's so much more tactile and he doesn't like being across the city from her when he wants to wrap her up in his arms. God, he doesn't even know where to start.

"I caught pneumonia one year, before the holidays."

He doesn't know where the words come from. He doesn't know why he blurted them out, but the emotions are still there. He can still picture it visibly, feel it. He also hears the way her breath catches, the little hum she makes.

It's a little bit funny, that. They talk about so many things, but he rarely, if ever, talks about his life before the serum. Skinny Steve, Natasha calls him, after she'd dug up pictures of him and Bucky before the latter had gone off to war.

"They kept me in the hospital. My immune system was crap." He can laugh about it now. He knows back then for his mother, for Bucky, it really wasn't that funny. "Mom worked so hard. The hospital bills piled up. I hated it."

"Man of action," he hears her murmur, an unconscious echo of his need to be there with her. To do something. Her voice is stronger though and it helps him settle in, to relax. It's evidence that he's helping.

"I was supposed to get better. Doctors kept telling Mom not to worry about it, that I'd be home for the holidays."

But his body had betrayed him, as it had done so very often before Erskine. Sometimes Steve hated his lot in life – the violence, the fame, the dancing monkey he has to be for publicity and good will – but he could never hate the man who had given him a chance to really live.

"We didn't have much. We rarely did. Some years my only Christmas present was an actual dinner. Mom never cared." He laughs a little. "Neither did I."

She hums again, pulls him back from the story, just a little. Just enough. He fiddles with the blankets just a little.

"We both knew there wasn't going to be Christmas. I wasn't getting better and Mom could only work so many shifts…" He sighs. "Christmas Eve I was passed out for most of the day, hacking when I was awake."

"Sucks."

"Yeah." But he laughs because it's so long ago, so far away, but it always serves to remind him of what he did get in the end, what he continues to get even here, in this time.

Like her.

"But when I woke up Christmas Day Mom was there. Buck too, the idiot."

There's a bittersweetness to the words. He hears them, knows she does too. She doesn't comment though, just waits. There's anticipation there, a feeling that he has her full attention and then some. He never knew stories could do this to her. He's not convinced she knew either.

"No presents," he goes on. "We really didn't have enough for that. But I guess Mom had gone to Bucky's for Christmas Eve, when they kicked her out of the hospital. She hated going."

"You had a good mom."

There's something in her voice he doesn't like, but he doesn't press. Another time, he thinks, when she isn't already shaken, when he cares about something other than getting her back to a place where she can drift off, even for an hour or so.

"I think it was Bucky, actually," he says, and knows his smile is fond. "They had turkey sandwiches, stuffing. Even cranberries."

"Christmas dinner."

"Leftovers," he agrees with a laugh. "For breakfast."

He feels the beat she waits, wonders if any of her tells are showing, like the way she'll draw random patterns on the bedspread.

"Maria."

"You had good people."

"I still have good people," he replies, doesn't even have to think about it. He hasn't questioned it, really. Not even during the Triskellion. He doesn't have to. Sam and Natasha and even Tony and Pepper. Thor and Jane and Darcy who don't always visit but he knows. Bruce and Clint. They're all good people, if a little messed up.

Everyone's messed up.

And her. Always her now. In front of him, beside him, in his mind and he knows in his heart. It makes him gasp, just a little, makes his breath come hard and fast in his lungs. This is why he wants this, this holiday, these traditions, the advent calendar he doesn't often consult anymore. Maria's thrown it all in the water, there beside him every step of the way. With him.

A sigh floats over the phone, turns into that adorable yawn that she hates and he loves. Soft. Vulnerable.

"Better?"

She hums. "Sorry."

For waking him, he knows. "Maria."

That gets a tired laugh. "Never going to change, Rogers. Take it or leave it."

He knows that, is sure of it. She's never going to just bend into him and definitely not when she's feeling weak and vulnerable. But he knows now, that he can weave a different tale for her. That he can help her, even if it's not the way he'd like.

He doesn't tell her, but he knows he'll take it. All of her, just as she is.

God, he's a mess.

"Sleep?"

"Yeah," she says on a sigh. "Thank you."

"Sure thing," he says softly and feels those promises well up in his throat again. Promises to always be there for her, to make up stories if he has to, so long as it helps. Whatever it takes to help. It's what he does and sometimes, even when she doesn't want it, he knows it's what she needs.

"Tomorrow?" she asks, and he can hear her already drifting. Dozing.

"Tomorrow."

And he hangs up.


	10. Chapter 10

**December 10, 2014**

Steve's story haunts her the next day. She has had exactly one good Christmas over her years on the planet. One Christmas where she'd had a light in the tunnel of work and her alcoholic father. But Steve, Steve's had… lots of good Christmases. She knows it. A mother and a best friend that smuggled Christmas dinner into a hospital bed, the way he spoke of how he didn't care that there were no presents, nothing material. But a good Christmas nevertheless.

There's nothing in her past that can come anywhere close.

It's another stark reminder of how different they are, how incompatible they are. It's reaffirmation of the absolutely stupid idea it had been to even start this, to agree with him. How can a woman like her, cold, dark, SHIELD's ice queen, compare to Steve's general good will and unwavering faith.

"Hey. Ready for the windows?"

Maria looks up at Steve, takes the cup he offers her. She feels like she's shaking, but her hands are steady.

"Maria?"

"Can we just walk?"

He blinks for a moment, but she's not sure if there's something in his face or if he's really just nonchalant about the whole thing. Either way, he simply holds up his hand.

"Where to?"

"Anywhere," she replies, already walking, pulling him along. "Just- Not the windows."

She's not ready for the windows. Not after his picture perfect Christmas he's painted for her the previous evening.

She's not sure how long they walk before he finally asks, "Everything okay?"

She wants to say yes. She wants to tell him that there's nothing to worry about, but she also knows he isn't as stupid as oblivious as people often assume he is. The words climb her throat, choking her until she forces them all down with a thick swallow.

"Lost in my own head," she finally manages.

He waits a beat, then two. "Want to talk about it?"

No, is the answer. She does not want to give him a reason to step back, not a reason to push harder. She knows, eventually, what he will discover for himself that they are not suited and she can't say she's particularly eager to get there.

But she also knows he's really trying and that she really has too. She's not stupid enough to think that this doesn't matter, to him personally or them together.

Because he wants her to share, always wants her to tell him thinks about what she's doing, what she's feeling and she can't. She just can't. It's not her style, talking. She takes Christmas shifts. She takes the heat and blame when things go wrong on her watch. She protects her people from blame they don't deserve and she does it without people knowing. She hates being the centre of attention. She hates people knowing her. She hates being vulnerable.

She doesn't talk. But he does and while she is very aware she doesn't owe him – he'd kill her for even thinking such a thing – she thinks maybe she wants to give him this.

"I've had one good Christmas."

His gaze is startled when she manages to look up. Startled and a little greedy and she knows this is right. A certainty settles in her gut that no matter what she's about to tell him he will be there, stalwart and true. He just wants to know her, all of the places, all of the corners. He'll wait too, she knows, and she can't seem to keep herself from leaning in. He grunts a little as her hip bumps his harder than she'd meant.

"One good Christmas?"

Oh. Right.

She laughs a little. "Clint's idea, before Fury pulled me up the ranks."

Pulled her. Sure. Like she didn't want to climb that ladder. The look Steve gives her tells her he's painfully aware of both the workaholic tendency that would have fit Fury perfectly and the ambition that she has in spades. She rolls her eyes, even as her heart warms strangely at how well he knows that.

"He's just brought Natasha in. The Black Widow." Maria shakes her head. It's funny to look back on, the weird knowledge that she'd been facing the best assassin, a legend in the her own right, preparing to celebrate Christmas. It had been strange and a little daunting at the time, but Maria's never been a coward.

There's a smile dancing across her face as she looks up at him. "Could you imagine? Clint wanted to celebrate Christmas with the Black freaking Widow just months after we'd brought her in. She was still going through the reprogramming, given what amounts to a day pass from prison for it. But I was young and Clint was insistent."

She rolls her eyes, but he has a little smile on his face. It looks so amused and more than a little adoring and her heart flips again. It's moments like these – like their phone calls when all of this started, the way he gets after a nightmare, the pleading look on his face when he asks her "Please, Maria, don't run" – that crack her open, wide and deep and vulnerable.

"What did she do?"

"Nothing," Maria replies. "It was… Christmas."

"It's Natasha. And Barton."

"Both of whom are - were-"

He winces, like the reminder that SHIELD's gone still hurts him. Or maybe that's more about his missing friend. Regardless, she glosses over it because if she doesn't, she's never going to get all of this out.

"Phil cooked, thank God. Natasha isn't the cooking type and Clint burns water. Literally."

Steve snorts.

"Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing… I'd never had a Christmas like that before. Never did afterwards, either." She doesn't have to look at him to know there's a question there, to know he won't ask out loud and risk interrupting her. He's not immune to the knowledge that this is the most she's voluntarily shared about the deep vaults of herself.

"I worked. Single, no family, nowhere to go and there were people that did."

She braces herself for the lecture, because that's how this always happens. She works so hard, she works so long, and when she admits to working through Christmas through "the best years of her life" that tends to be the last straw. But Steve, as he's prone to do, as he has done since the beginning, surprises her.

Instead of scolding, he chuckles. "That's so you."

"What?"

He side-eyes her, like he's nervous. Like he's about to tell her something she doesn't want to hear. "Giving up that time for someone who needs it."

And oh wow. Just wow. She huffs a little, hates the way he does this to her sometimes. The way he knows. The way he tugs her aside at the market when it gets too crazy, the way he doesn't ask questions when she puts the kibosh on his very exciting plans to look at the Macy's holiday windows in favour of wandering aimlessly. He hates anything aimless, likes purpose and pursuit but he also knows that sometimes she needs it.

She's known, of course. He's always so aware of her, or at least she feels that way. She's always catching his eye when they're across the room. He's always gravitated towards her on movie nights at the Tower. She swallows around the thought of his need to have her being a little more obvious to everyone but her.

"Not this year though," she murmurs.

He nudges them aside – and when had they stopped walking? – presses her against the brick wall. New York's pedestrian traffic floats around them, oblivious and uncaring, but she's kind of the same. She's focussed on him, very blue eyes and a face that says more than she can take in.

"What are you doing this year?" he asks and she knows he's not being obvious. He wants to know and hasn't assumed she'll be spending it with him, even if she can see the yearning for it in his gaze.

There are a lot of words she can't give him, but she knows she can give him this.

"I don't know." And his mouth comes down, brushes against hers in the December daylight. "Surprise me, Steve."

His smile, she thinks, will always make the vulnerability worth it.


	11. Chapter 11

**December 11, 2014**

Wednesday, to put it mildly, sucks.

It's a Wednesday that literally trumps the Chitauri attack for levels of hell. Okay, maybe that's a bit unrealistic and very drama-queen-esque but she is livid and even though she isn't a woman that tends to cry, very close to tears.

It starts with her alarm clock that chooses today of all days not to go off. She's running late by the time her body snaps her awake and barely has time to stop for coffee. Of course, New York's traffic has something against her and a jolt by her cabbie sends half of that coffee spilling down the front of her not five minutes later. To add insult to injury, she knows she pulls a run in her stocking on her way out of said cab. And that's just the forty-five minutes it had taken her to get into the office.

Then come the meetings.

She starts her day by explaining to Stark that no, he cannot turn his underground garage into a state-of-the-art Avengers training centre when Clint has a fully outfitted ranch just outside the city limits. And no, Pepper will not let him be a part of the discussions on the Middle East because his opinions so often insult the diplomats along for the ride. No, she will not vouch for him either.

She moves on from there to her scientists who are behind on all of their projects due to shareholder budget restrictions and concerns about doing good deeds around the holidays. Which means she then has to very carefully tip-toe around the shareholders' meeting in explaining why the projects they're sponsoring don't seem to be showing up when they're supposed to and no, they cannot tour the labs because there are dangerous substances and equipment down there. She remembers the Triskellion and refuses to put people who believe they have power in any proximity to weaponry.

At lunch she calls Steve, asks for a raincheck on whatever his plans were today. She really just wants to go home.

But she has an update with May on the regrowth of SHIELD – not looking good there – and with Natasha – Maria's glad to hear the redhead's alive and isn't so glad to hear that the ear Maria had very carefully asked Natasha to keep on the ground regarding Barnes hasn't heard a damn useful thing – before typing out an email to Phil about borrowing maybe Fitz or Simmons for a couple of weeks to get her scientists back on schedule.

Maria has never in her life left work on time, but when five rolls around, she's already packed up and out of there. She splurges on a cab again because she is not crowding herself into New York's pedestrian traffic when she's feeling more than a little homicidal.

She is so painfully thankful to see her apartment door.

The lights are on when she steps in, her apartment smelling like something warm and home cooked. Her heart leaps, even as she sighs.

"You're home."

She tries for a smile, she really does. She knows it falls so flat.

"Pepper texted me," he says quietly. He doesn't come any closer, doesn't try to crowd her against the door. She's surprisingly glad for it and definitely touched that he's just…

He's letting her come to him.

So she does, in part because even after a terrible day she's drawn to him and in part because she feels a little bit like maybe his presence isn't going to be the pain in the ass she'd originally expected. It's not calming, necessarily, but she finds that having him here, knowing that he'll stand there and let her rant at him if she were the type – and she can tell he wants to know, it's written all over his face – makes some of the tension leak out of her spine.

In a move she's sure most wouldn't characterize as her, she settles right against his side, forces him to make room for her. He doesn't seem to mind, just shifts easily, wraps an arm around her and presses a kiss against her head.

"I thought we could go skating today," he tells her quietly. "Rockefeller Centre or Bryant Park."

"Steve-"

"Shush."

She thinks about hitting him, even turns her face up to offer a critical look. He just knocks a kiss against the corner of her mouth.

"Then you called and Pepper texted so I thought maybe we could do something else."

"Something else?"

He shushes him again and she seriously considers asking him if he has a death wish. No one 'shushes' Maria Hill.

"I raided Stark's video collection," he tells her. "So there's spaghetti and Christmas movies. No more people, no more work – my phone's even off – just dinner and movies until you pass out."

And that, well. That sounds just the right side of perfect.

"I was just going to get takeout," she murmurs, stepping away so he can have both hands free to dish up dinner.

He chuckles. "Just say 'thank you', Maria."

She huffs, then grabs him by the collar of his t-shirt and yanks him down for a rather thorough kiss. He's grinning when her eyes finally open.

"Or that," he says. "That works too."

She rolls her eyes. "Might be the only one you get tonight, Rogers. I'm not kissing you with spaghetti breath."

She's perfectly content to lean back into the couch after dinner and, half way through _The Santa Clause,_ to let him prove her wrong.


	12. Chapter 12

**December 12, 2014**

"I want a tree."

Steve blinks, pulls the phone away from his ear for a moment to double check the caller ID. That is Maria's name and it is Maria's voice, but he can't say that he fully believes it's really her.

"A tree."

"Christmas tree. For your place."

"Mine?"

"I won't remember to water it."

He barks out a laugh even as his mind spins to catch up. There's a strange breathless quality to her voice, hidden just under the steel of her command. Like she knows he's going to jump at her every order.

He kind of does, and this really isn't an exception. He's already half way into his coat. "You know that means we have to have Christmas here."

Her breath catches; he hears it loud and clear over the line. "Maria."

"Yes."

His heart flips over in his chest, thumps hard and if he had been living a different life, without the serum and all of its enhancements, he thinks he may have been afraid of a heart attack. As it is, he rubs his knuckles over his chest. She hadn't even tried to fight the idea.

"Come with me," she says. "I want a tree."

"So you've said. Where are you?"

She laughs and he hears a door open, hears the winter wind in his ear. "Outside. Come on, I've already got a place."

Of course she does.

It's dark, of course, inching towards the longest night of the year and he shivers despite the fact that it kind of isn't that cold. Temperature shock, he thinks with a smile, and he relishes it a little. And then he finds her, leaning against the wall face intent on her phone. It's Friday and she wants a tree and maybe that's where his bravery comes from. She sees him coming, even lifts her head, the smile stretching wide and shockingly child-like across her face.

It disappears immediately when he slips her phone from her fingers.

"Steve-"

He hums, shakes his head, already pocketing the Stark tech. "You want a tree."

"And that has what to do with my phone?"

"Have you ever hunted for a Christmas tree?" he says, his tone taking on an affronted quality. He expects a pressed-lipped look, exasperation maybe even an eye roll. Instead, her face goes dead serious, even nervous.

"No."

He feels winded again, just for a moment before the air comes sweeping back into his lungs. She'd hinted at it, he knows, had already known she'd worked most Christmases before her confession, but it's a startling glimpse into her childhood too. He wants to know, so very badly, because he thinks where she comes from is so important to who she is, but he bites his tongue. Hard. If there's anything he's learned in the last couple of weeks it's that she rewards patience with breathtaking expressions of trust.

Like her only happy Christmas.

He is so very curious about her. He feels it crash around him at the oddest moments, like having her curled against him while the credits of _It's a Wonderful Life_ play on screen – and hadn't she snarked her way through that, like it cut a little too deep to watch it all – and he'd felt all of the questions well up in his throat. Where did she grow up? What was it like? She would have seen the development of the Internet, of tablets and ebooks and YouTube. He wants to ask her about growing up in a different time, where war was always skirting the horizon, but never manifesting to the extent it had in his first life. He wants to ask about processed foods and women's suffrage, things he already knows about but wants to hear from her point of view because he knows that's how she talks about herself, by talking about others.

Riddles. Enigmas. Codes and cyphers and mysteries without any sense of malice, just… protection. Protection first, herself and others. But, he knows, that's not what she sees in herself.

"Christmas tree hunting is serious," he tells her, tucking the phone in his pocket. She can get it back, he knows, probably without him ever noticing. But that's not the point here. "No phones, Miss Hill. No distractions. We're on a mission."

There's a startled look on her face but her eyes are so rich, so deep. He isn't even sure what he's said to put that look on her face.

"Operation: Christmas Elf."

It startles a laugh out of her and her hand even comes up to cover it. She looks so damn girlish, young and like he just cannot be real as he stands in front of her. But oh, he is real and he cannot help the way he reaches for her, presses her back into the wall and leans down, tugs her hand away from her lips. Her mouth is hot and slick against his and she actually pushes back, gives as good as she gets even as she leans back into the wall. It forces him closer, harder against her and forces the breath from his lungs.

Like she isn't already doing that.

The kiss escalates, becomes hot and liquid and glorious before he forces himself to slow down, to pull back. He lets himself take one more taste, one more swipe at her bottom lip before he finally steps back. She chases him and his heart leaps even as his hands keep her pinned to the wall. If she comes after him again they're not going to find a tree tonight.

"Where are we going?"

He thrills when it takes her a moment to clear the haze from her eyes, loves that she even looks like that at all, just a little bit mussed, lips a little bit swollen. Her hand clenches in his coat sleeve before she manages to clear her throat.

And oh. Oh he has her, doesn't he? The evidence is right here in front of him, that no matter what her excuses might be, the real things she thinks will come between them, he's got her.

Oh wow.

He barely moves when she pushes away from the wall, when she reaches for his pocket. Slim fingers brush his chest and he wonders if she can feel how hard his heart is beating. If she can, she doesn't say anything, just pulls her phone from his pocket. She waves it between them, a sly smile on her face.

"GPS."

He barks out a laugh, can't help himself as he knocks a kiss to her cheek.

"Lead the way, Lieutenant."

It's not a tree farm like he remembers, out in the open with the air biting. The nursery is beautiful though, decked out for the season with fairy lights and poinsettias, ornaments sparkling where they're displayed on trees.

Oh. Ornaments.

"We're going to need decorations."

Maria startles, turns back to him. "What?"

He has to swallow, tries to see her around the carefree way her hair tumbles over the black collar of her pea coat. Who the hell is this woman? God, he doesn't care. It feels strange and amazing at the same time, like he's just discovered treasure. He wonders if this is what it felt like to find him in the ice, giddy and terrifying in equal measure.

Is this what she's always like beneath the ice? Warm and soft? It's been his experience, that's for sure. It hadn't been more than a month ago that he'd dreamed of cracking her open like this, seeing what was beneath that strong, steady shell. She's still that woman, he can see it in the way she floats back to him like he's looking anxious or worried. Calm and strong and unmoving, but also Maria with soft eyes and a spark of excitement as she looks around, maybe just a little overwhelmed if the way that she reaches for and clutches his hand are any indication.

He forces himself to swallow it all back.

"Ornaments," he repeats. "Decorations. And a stand, a skirt."

"Oh," she breathes. "That's a lot."

He laughs a little, leans into her. "It really is your first tree."

"Didn't have one as a kid," she says with a shrug, and he thinks her distraction at the almost overwhelming decisions in front of them is what makes her candid. "My father was always too drunk and we really didn't need something else he could ruin for me."

His heart skips, stalls. "What?"

Startled eyes come back to his, like she hadn't realized what she'd said.

"Your father?"

She flinches, eyes going hard. Gone is soft Maria and in her place is this brittle thing, the ice queen of SHIELD and Stark Industries fame and he hates it. Oh, he hates it so much. He hates it more when she takes a step back, untangles her fingers from his.

"You knew my father was an alcoholic."

"No," he says, the dead honest truth.

Her brow wrinkles. "It's in my file."

"I've never read your file." God, he's never read anyone's file. Files are facts, are things. They aren't emotions or people or moments or… He doesn't care about what a file says, about what that file is supposed to tell him, he cares about what people do, what they say. Not what someone else says. Or he probably wouldn't be on a team with Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff.

She watches him for a moment, spine ramrod straight and made of steel. "I've read yours."

"You were my CO," he says, almost exasperated.

There's confusion in his eyes, straight and true and a wariness that surprises him. "You just… Trusted me."

_Long before I trusted you_.

He wants to sit. He really does. This feels like too heavy of a conversation to have surrounded by Christmas decorations and the scent of pine and poinsettia. He finds a bench, knows in theory it's not his and he shouldn't sit on it but he does anyway. She approaches him slowly, a scared rabbit and not the woman who wanted to look for a tree.

God, this is all off the rails.

But maybe, he thinks as he looks up at her, a little bit pained - because this should not be her life, she should have so many people that just believe in her and trust her, without the file and the past – they need this. Maybe she needs this.

"Of course I did," he murmurs, drops his head into his hands, elbows braced on his thighs. "Loki had tried to blow up the helicarrier, the bridge was a mess, Coulson was dead, we had no idea where Thor and Banner were but there you were, in the middle of it all, putting everything back in order, getting everything up and running with a scratch bleeding on your cheek and your hair a mess."

His confession is followed by a stunned sort of silence and it takes him a few minutes to draw up the courage to lift his head. Sure enough, she's standing there, completely blank-faced. To most, he thinks, it would be a sure sign of Maria shutting down. The laughter he releases is bitter as he looks away again.

"I drew that, when things calmed down and I was trying to decide what to do. Strong and fierce and battling on despite everything. Because you believed in what we were doing, even if you didn't believe in us. I don't need to see a file to know that."

"No."

Her eyes are liquid again, alluring and warm and he is not going to survive this. He is not going to survive her and he is not sure he gives a damn.

"You came to me in the hospital," he murmurs. "Dressed up, beautiful."

A blush stains her cheeks.

"You asked me why you. You asked me if I knew you'd blow the helicarriers. What did I say?"

She steps closer, her legs brushing his knees. "That you trusted me to make the right decision."

He reaches for her hands because he can't stop himself. That drive to touch is humming under his skin, even though she still looks a little aloof, a little separate. "An alcoholic father doesn't determine that, Maria. An alcoholic father doesn't tell me anything about you that I want to know."

Her face is impassive again, but he knows better now. He gets his hands on her waist, tugs her down with him, buries his face in her shoulder.

"I don't care," he says into her skin. "I know what it's like to get lost in what used to be. I know what it's like to feel like you have nothing, that you are nothing, to rebuild yourself from that. And Maria, that is so much more impressive than where you came from."

She is still for a moment before her fingers come up to bury themselves in his hair. She holds him to her like that, close and tight and warm. Eventually, he feels her take a shaky breath and then everything just folds.

He looks up, finds her obviously shaken, maybe a little wary. She tries to smile and he tries to give it back to her.

"Sometimes, Rogers, you're too good to be true."

His laugh is strained, but he lets her up when she moves, even lets her pull him up too. She's the one who weaves their fingers together, who tugs to get him moving. He feels simultaneously like he's broken something and like he's mended it in the same breath. She looks strangely like nothing's just happened, like he hasn't just cracked her open and all but scraped out her insides.

But he knows.

So he lets her tug him along, falls into step with her as they wander the Fraser and Balsam firs. It's a seven-foot tree that finally catches her eye, plump, but with a slight hole in the back. Instead of looking further though, she turns to him with a shrug.

"Nothing's perfect, right? By the time we decorate it, you'll never see it."

His breath stops dead in his lungs, so much so that he finds himself choking and coughing, trying to wave off her concerned look while the nursery workers pack up the tree. It's what he'd been trying to tell her, isn't it? That idea that what you make of a situation counts more than the outcome, that she may have flaws and issues, but so does he. Neither of them are perfect, but that doesn't mean they can't mould what they have.

He knows as he watches her that he is done for, that he'll never be able to climb out of her. The emotion wells up in him so intense and fierce and he yanks her close, pushes a hard kiss into her mouth before he says something he's going to regret.

Like _I love you._


	13. Chapter 13

**December 13, 2014**

It had started with a debrief. Maria'd woken to an e-mail from Natasha. _Might be something. Call you_. Short, to the point, and so Natasha, so she'd texted Steve, begging off their Saturday market trip and promising to meet him to decorate their tree instead. Somewhere along the way the debrief – a very, very tentative lead on Barnes that Natasha would rather not discuss with anyone else – had become, well, a therapy session. With the Black Widow.

"He's a hero to the Free World," Natasha says, her derisive snort loud through Maria's headphones, a wry twist to her smile on the tiny phone screen. Black Widow or not, that patronizing tone grates on Maria's nerves. "Why would he want to be a hero to the woman he's dating on top of that."

It makes a stupid amount of sense, really. The only 'rescuing' he ever does for her is usually more for someone else's benefit than hers. Like bringing her lunch, or dragging her out of the office when she pulls her fourteen, sixteen hour days.

"He scares the hell out of you," Natasha goes on. "Because he won't just hate everything every other man has. Your independence, your career, your strength."

Maria snorts. "You played matchmaker for months, you can't tell me I was ever one of your options."

"Of course not," Natasha says, a lazy quality to her voice that sets Maria on edge. "Have you met you? You're not exactly open to the idea of matchmaking."

It isn't the answer she's looking for and Maria growls.

Natasha's face breaks, her cackle floating into Maria's ears and she seriously considers getting on a Stark jet, Black Window's reputation be damned, and hunting the woman down.

"Maria. You work constantly. To the point where Pepper Potts had to make a rule to kick you out of the office one day a week. No one was sure you even knew Steve existed outside of an asset and a soldier before the fall of SHIELD."

Maria wants to disagree. It would be the truth, to her – because how the hell do you not notice Steve Rogers, let alone overlook Captain America – but she also knows Natasha isn't likely to believe her.

"Doesn't mean things won't work."

The phrase makes Maria want to laugh. Relationship advice from a woman who believes the emotion to be childish. When had this become her life?

"It makes sense actually. You and Steve," the assassin goes on, a thoughtful note to her voice now, like this is the first time she's ever seriously considered it. "He'll never have to worry about you if things go belly up. He'll probably want you along for the ride."

"What?"

"Missions. Enemies. You know we all have them. You know Stark's almost constantly terrified for Pepper's safety. Not Steve. Not you."

Maria rolls her eyes. Of course she's not afraid, of her enemies finding Steve or of Steve's enemies finding her. They've taken precautions, of course, security systems and weapons stashed around their apartments, but Maria knows that she has nothing to worry about. He's Captain freaking America, and even caught, she isn't stupid enough to think he won't have a plan. Or trust that she won't be out there looking for him.

"He actually never has to be Captain America for you. Just Steve. I can see that being a relief."

Says the woman who so rarely peels back the layers to show this friendly person beneath. But Maria will play into her myth, if only to give Natasha the illusion of security.

"Why do you sound so logical about something you don't believe in?"

Natasha shrugs. "Figured since all my covers were blown I'd try on something new. Turns out Cap makes believers out of us all."

Maria's chest clenches. She clears her throat, "Keep me posted on that report."

And Natasha, bless her, doesn't push. Instead, she signs off and Maria sighs as she looks around her apartment before she pushes herself up. She has a tree to decorate after all, but the Black Widow's words haunt her all the way to Steve's place, leave her waiting at the door to his walk up rather than letting herself in. It's a lot to think about, the idea that part of the draw of her is everything everyone else has hated. The deal breakers that had ended other relationships are the glue in this one.

Maybe that's what draws her eye to the window, makes her dart across the street and into the tiny little shop. When she walks back out she doesn't hesitate outside Steve's apartment, but heads up. The lock clicks with the right code and she steps into Steve's apartment. His head comes up from his book and she gets the honour of his unguarded, vaguely glazed eyes as they finally focus on her.

He smiles.

"Hey."

"Hi," she greets. "Did you buy gingerbread?"

She can smell it. He's still grinning as comes, takes her coat. He reaches for the bag too but she grips it tight and feels the secretive little smile grow across her mouth. "No peeking."

His eyes flare and she feels her fingers twitch with the need to reach out for him. He does it for her, leaning in and pressing his mouth to hers like he can't help himself. She's not much better and lets her mouth do the work for her. He rests his forehead on hers for a beat.

"Lights?"

She smiles. "Yeah."

They have too many, she thinks, but his face is alight in their glow, warm and right and she can't bring herself to tell him to stop. They hang the metallic blue balls next, the little icicles he claimed were calling his name, and then stepped back, surveyed.

"We never did get an angel, did we?"

Maria bites her lip. "I might have something better."

She goes for that little bag, pulls from within it a spool of wide yellow ribbon. He looks at her, a little surprised because he knows the significance just as well as she does.

"It's not an oak tree," she says quietly, "But I'm not sure Tony Orlando would mind. Can you reach?"

He can and she cuts a length of the ribbon before she hands it over. He steps back when it's tied, drooping more than a little but wide and bright around the top of their tree.

Then he's turning towards her, reaching for her, and she moves easily and willingly into his fierce kiss. He plunders and takes and there's awe in the hot nip of his teeth against her lip, worship in the way his hands span her back.

She can see it all written in his face when they pull back, what this means, what it makes him feel and she thinks maybe Natasha had been right. Maybe they work for all of the reasons she never worked with anyone before. They're soldiers, fighters, even spies when the situation calls for it. They save worlds and protect those who can't protect themselves and both of them understand that, both as a profession and as a passion.

"Yeah," she whispers as she lets him wrap her up in his arms. "I think it's pretty perfect for us too."


	14. Chapter 14

**December 14, 2014**

She wakes up on Sunday to a hush in the air and _knows_. She lets her eyes flutter closed, lets herself luxuriate for five more minutes before she actually pries her eyes open. She avoids the windows as she pushes out of bed, as she heads for the coffee maker and slips in and out of the bathroom. It's only when she has that first mug cupped between her palms that she allows herself to finally look.

New York is covered in a thick, white blanket of snow.

She's caught up immediately, watching thick fat flakes float down from the sky, settle on the piles they've already formed. She can't even hate the slush coating the streets below. Everything is so quietly beautiful, so much so that she barely hears her phone ring. She ignores it, doesn't want to step away from this moment. These simple moments of beauty remind her it even exists. She knows she has a habit of forgetting.

And isn't that part of what Steve's doing? Helping her see that Christmas is a thing that everyone has, that this year she won't be working – Stark has been adamant about SI shutting down over the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth – and getting a tree at her request so they can celebrate together? She has someone to celebrate Christmas with.

Her phone rings again and she glares at it for a moment before giving in. It's Steve's face there and her smile is growing before she slides her thumb across the screen to connect the call.

"Did you see it?"

He's breathless but sad. She takes another sip of coffee. "I'm watching it now."

Steve blows out a heavy breath. "I want it to be beautiful."

That startles her a little. If anyone could find the beauty in the slushy sidewalks this will create it's Steve. "It's not?"

"Bucky died in the snow. Or, well."

Her heart skips. It's not that she's forgotten Barnes by any extent of the imagination – she's got her best woman on it, doesn't she, and they'd just talked about it yesterday – but the heavy sadness that hangs there forces her to remember that Barnes isn't just an asset. He isn't just the Winter Solider and this isn't just a mission to rescue a man from the same life Natasha once had. It is, even in a twisted way, for Steve. For what he wants, what he yearns for, that connection and part of his life that she knows he misses.

It's a stark reminder that Barnes isn't far from Steve's mind.

She sips at her coffee, watching the snow, trying to figure out what she can do here. Just a couple of days ago he'd given her tree hunting, just yesterday the magic of a Christmas tree she'd never had. She wants to give something back to him, almost desperately. She's just not sure how.

"I couldn't stand the cold as a kid. It sunk into my bones. I didn't have any body fat and even layer after layer of wool couldn't seem to keep it out."

She hums, enthralled. He does this to her, maybe longer than she'd thought, but the minute the words had come out of her mouth a couple of nights ago – "Talk to me" while she's shaking and shivering, blood painted across the back of her eyelids – it had kind of crystalized. She thinks it's his tone, his voice, the soothing cadence.

"Let me guess," she says quietly. "Bucky loved it."

Steve grunts, amused and pained in equal measure. It draws a quiet chuckle from her too.

"Dragged me out into the first snow. Every year like clockwork."

It's adorable and she thinks maybe she can picture it. Well, as close as she can get considering she finds it very difficult to hold onto the pictures she's seen of the sickly kid in comparison to the man she knows.

"What about you?"

She hums, distracted. "Gave my dad a new excuse to use in the hospitals. 'She fell on the ice and broke her arm'."

His gasp brings her back, clues her in. The breath whooshes out of her lungs hard and fast.

"Shit. Steve-"

And yet, it had been an easy admission, hadn't it? One that slipped out because she'd been distracted by snow and the man on the phone. Unthinking in a way Maria normally is not. Trusting.

"How can you like it then?"

She blinks as she thinks. He's asked her a question within a question. How can she still look at snow, at the danger it provides, the cover up it was, and not hate it? How did she move forward?

She closes her eyes, floats back. It's a good memory, this one, and she doesn't have much trouble pulling it up. "My first year at West Point, during the first snow, I went out. I went for a walk. I slipped on ice and probably bruised the hell out of my tailbone, but didn't break a bone. Didn't get hurt. I was pretty defiant then, done with authority and being under my dad's thumb and I was not going to let him ruin it for me. Not when I was going to have to live in it every day."

She chuckles a little, watches a cab push slowly through the drifts on the road. "Right when I thought my fingers were going to fall off, I made myself stop and build a snowman."

"A snowman?"

"Rocks for eyes, and a nose. Stick arms. Even gave him three little buttons."

She can laugh now, but Maria knows then it had been something different. Totally and completely different. It was about proving to herself that her father couldn't control her, that he couldn't make her feel small or worthless.

"He was mine."

And there it is, isn't it? Exactly what she should do, what she can do for him. The perfect line pops into her head – Thor pleading with them all because he does not understand the obsession with this Elsa when he sees her kind of magic every day – and the smile blossoms over her face.

"Hey Steve."

"Hm?"

She almost laughs before she gets the words out, can barely catch her breath in amusement and excitement. "Do you want to build a snowman?"

. . . . .

He is absolutely frozen. His hands hurt from the cold, from the way the snow soaked into his gloves, but he knows from the warm glow in his heart that Maria had achieved her goal. Well, and she'd given him something too. She'd given him back the beauty of snow.

And maybe frostbite.

"Don't be a baby," she says on an amused huff, nudging into his back to keep him moving. He shivers as she pushes his soaked shirt into his back – he's starting to think she could take Natasha with those ninja skills she's hiding. Or that he forgets about. Whatever – and stumbles forward, unwinding his scarf. She's right behind him, so close that he can feel her full-body shiver. He turns, finds her cheeks so red, her eyes a little glazed.

"You're freezing."

This time her laugh is real. "I am."

She says it with such relish that he's a little scared for a minute. But then she's leaning in, taking his mouth, and the heat of that zings through him so fast he almost stumbles. Instead, he catches her up against him, gives as good as he gets.

"Not so bad now."

This woman. Who the hell is this woman? Where is her spine of steel, her careful adherence to rules and strict discipline? None of that was with them in Central Park as they piled snow on top of snow, hunted down rocks, even made snow angels. And, of course, the requisite snowball fight where he'd only managed to win by pinning her and using his weight. Otherwise he thinks he'd be the only one soaked to the skin.

"Shower," he says, even as he tugs her in. It's a move he immediately reverses when she lets out a vaguely pained sound, but one look at her eyes tells him there was nothing painful about the move. He laughs a little, has to take her mouth again because this woman.

Maria.

"Not an invitation."

It hadn't been. He hadn't meant it that way. Eventually, sure, but he's only willing to push her so far, is only willing to instigate so much.

"I know," she replies. "But. You know."

Oh. Oh he does. Because he would, he could. He knows he could have her, knows that he does. Knows that the hard exterior is what she shows everyone else because she's damn soft beneath. Vulnerable and easily hurt but hiding beneath steel and determination and a drive to be whoever she wants to be and not what others expect her to be.

He huffs, strips her coat off her shoulders and leaves it in a heap on the floor. He'll pick it up in a minute, when he feels more like she's not going to freeze to death. "Another time."

And she needs to stop looking at him like that, eyes so blue and so hot because he is not a saint and he damn well wants her. He growls, leans in to nip at her jaw, her ear. It gets a laugh out of her, low and dark and he wants to hear that when she's pressed beneath him, warm and responsive and-

"Okay, okay. Steve, you can't-"

"You first," he interrupts, shoves her towards his bedroom and the en suite beyond. "I'll put coffee on."

And find her clothes. Baggy clothes where he can't see her curves like he can with the way her sweater is plastered to her skin. Oh, he got her good.

"Maria," he calls, because he can't help himself. He needs her face again, her eyes that aren't brittle. He smiles, valiantly resists the urge to go after her. "Thanks."

She smiles right back, not an ounce of heat from before in the look, but stunning in it's own right. "Always."

* * *

><p><em>Soooooo. Laaaate.<em>


	15. Chapter 15

**December 15, 2014**

_Okay, Maria. Stop. Think. Plan._

_And try not to hit anyone._

Maria closes her eyes and breathes deep. This is nothing. This is easy. People do this all the time without blinking. And without half of the information she has because her freaking job hinges on her ability to collect information. But she thinks she'd gladly face an entire Hydra cell single-handedly, without back up, rather than face, well, this.

Christmas shopping.

At the Manhattan Mall.

She's never done it. Ever. By the time she'd hit West Point, she'd been independent and ridiculously protective of her heart after having it stomped on for so many years that she hadn't made friends. Not that friends were particularly important with shells shattering around her on tour. She and Fury exchanged the "gift" of mandatory days off and even her singular good Christmas hadn't been about gifts.

But Steve.

Well, she's actually pretty sure Steve doesn't want gifts. Not material ones anyway. Steve wants people and happiness and world peace. Maybe a damn puppy, but she won't risk it given the report Phil sent her that morning. In their code that Maria knows is going to take her hours to translate. She kind of wants to email him back, scold him. Doesn't he know it's almost Christmas?

And oh.

Oh wow.

Because last year she would be at the office now, decoding the report meant for her eyes only – the Diviner? If it's a Carter thing from before SHIELD she doesn't figure Stark has anything, but she'll look, of course – and not about to brave stores the week before Christmas.

She reaches absently for her hip where her gun should be, remembers, again, she should probably file the paperwork for her permit now that she's not protected by a badge. She just hasn't really had time, what with Hydra and Steve and Steve's search for Barnes –

And Christmas shopping.

Maybe she should send something to Phil, too. Melinda, definitely because while Maria does have to deal with Stark, she has Pepper as a buffer. Melinda is the buffer. The woman deserves a medal. She may have to settle for a spa certificate, maybe a week at Pepper's favourite Buddhist monastery. She makes a mental note and smiles to herself.

Yeah, she's totally got this gift thing.

She can do this.

Then she steps through the door and her determination evaporates. There are too many people, it's too crowded, she does not have a gun. There is no way she is going to make it through this alive. There is no way she's going to make it out of this without killing someone. She does not have the patience for this. She hates malls.

Her phone vibrates and she reaches for it in blatant relief.

"Hill."

"Maria."

"Steve." She does not sound hysterical. Does not. She is calm and collected.

"Where are you?"

Her head drops, her hand rising to her hip. Yeah, she's a little rueful, isn't totally okay with tell him this. He's going to mock her. She knows it. "Manhattan Mall."

"Do you have a gun?"

She growls. "I haven't filed for my permit."

"When has that stopped you?"

"Do not tempt me, Rogers."

"You look good with a gun."

She can almost hear the shrug and no, thanks, she is not blushing. Not at such an off-hand complement. Her determination spikes. She will find him a present, if only to prove to him she can do this. Without blood.

"I always assumed you ordered online."

She will not groan. Why hadn't she thought of that? She's so damn wrapped up in traditions she hadn't really thought about online shopping. He's making a mess of her, him and this Christmas thing.

She sighs, heads towards the map. "Never bought gifts."

Silence falls and she takes the opportunity to scan the stores. JC Penney is the only one she recognizes. Excellent. Hell within hell. A mall department store.

"Then why start now?"

"What?"

"Why start buying now?"

"Because I'm trying to turn over a new leaf?"

"No one's asking you to change, Maria."

He sounds so serious and it takes her aback. She hadn't- There was nothing- She hadn't meant it metaphorically. At all.

"No. Steve-" She laughs a little awkwardly. "Not what I meant. I just… It's Christmas."

She thinks, for a moment, that the call has dropped before his breath huffs out. "There are other, better ways to show people you care."

She wants to laugh and hit him and hug him all at the same time. God, he leaves her emotions a mess.

"No presents, Maria. We'll make that another rule."

Well. She's not going to fight him when it can get her out of this hell hole. "I really don't want to be in a mall."

He chuckles, already sounds lighter. She sighs, makes a mental note to talk to him. Maybe she hasn't been clear that she wants to do this, she wants to be here.

"Come here," he says. "I'll order Thai."

She loves Thai. "Bribery, Captain?"

"Only if it's working."

She barks out a laugh, her feet already carrying her out of the shopping centre. The minute she steps onto the street she sighs and feels a little less like she wishes she had a gun.

"Better?"

She growls at his teasing, makes sure he can hear it. "Shut up, Rogers."


	16. Chapter 16

**December 16, 2014**

Steve knows he should be absorbed in the game. He likes basketball well enough – it's the off season for baseball and to be honest he's still trying to pick which team to cheer for with his Dodgers no longer in Brooklyn – but he cannot seem to focus. He's entirely distracted and definitely overanalyzing because, God, this shouldn't even be a thing. It had been an off-hand statement, he knows. She'd been staring at what she believed was honest and true hell and it had been her response-

_I'm turning over a new leaf._

Did she think he wanted her to change? Did she think that this whole Christmas thing was a secretive way to tell her that she needed to be more giving or more compassionate?

He stares morosely at the beer in front of him, turning the glass around on his coaster. Sam's yelling next to him – "Come on, man, that's a foul, straight up!" – and he knows the bar is filling up with the evening's patrons, but he barely acknowledges it. And the part he hates is that Sam's noticed. He's been shooting looks Steve's way. Steve is totally ruining Guys' Night.

"Call her," Sam says, nudging at Steve's shoulder. "You'll feel better."

Steve's not so sure. Actually, he'd probably still catch her at the office. God, now he wants to call her, check that she's still there, that at least something hasn't changed. And that's bad, he thinks it should be bad. He shouldn't want the woman he's dating to be working late while he's out with his buddies.

"Unless there's trouble in paradise?"

Steve knows it's written all over his face. "She went to the mall yesterday."

"Hill? Is it still standing?"

Steve huffs out a laugh.

"Sorry," but Sam's tone says it's anything but. In fact, Steve thinks it's leaning a little more towards amused. "Can't say I ever saw her as the type to have the patience."

"She doesn't," Steve answers. "She was Christmas shopping."

"It is that time of year."

"But not Maria's style."

Sam bobs his head for a moment like he's considering her words. "I can see that. She doesn't exactly strike me as the family group hug type."

Steve looks back to his beer.

"Did I miss something?"

Steve arches an eyebrow.

"The woman wants to buy Christmas presents. It's the week before Christmas."

Steve growls. Yes, when Sam says it like that it makes him sound ridiculous. "I don't want her to feel like she has to change."

Silence falls between them for a few moments while Sam gets caught in the game again. At the sound of the buzzer, Sam turns back to Steve.

"Hill does her own thing."

"I know."

"And you think because the two of you are thinking of doing the whole Mulder and Scully thing, that's going to change?"

Steve, entirely used to Sam's numerous pop culture references sighs. "Television?"

"Epic sci-fi. Write it down."

"I don't really like sci-fi. This future's been disappointing enough." At Sam's affronted look Steve shrugs. "No flying cars."

"That's Stark's deal, not mine."

Steve chuckles, then shrugs. "Plus, you know. Super serum, aliens, gods, not-so-dead German terrorist organizations… It's kind of my job."

Sam sighs. "My life was so much easier when I wasn't buddies with a frozen man from the 1940s who fell thousands of feet into the Potomac and was dragged out by his ghost of a best friend."

"You're welcome," Steve retorts with a grin.

"Yeah," Sam says on a laugh. "That too."

Steve grunts. "That's your point? Your pep talk moment?"

"That Captain America changes people? You know that."

Steve shifts his shoulders in obvious discomfort. He hates that. He's always hated that. It drives him insane, the inspired loyalty of Captain America. He hates the idea of people putting themselves on the line for him, because of him. Because he asked. "That's not me, I'm not just-"

"Captain America, save me the speech." Sam looks away. "Look man, Steve Rogers, you? You're a good guy. You inspire people, you damn well can't help yourself. We all feel it, we all react to it. Look at your Black Widow."

"Natasha?"

Sam shrugs. "Woman who prides herself on hiding who she is put all that out there because she believes in you. In Steve and in Captain America. You brought a team of vigilantes together and now you're sharing some sort of giant frat house in the middle of Manhattan, in some sort of weird Justice League."

"Justice League?"

Sam brushes it away. "Point is, you change people. You can't help it."

"Not her," Steve says. "Not Maria."

"Maria too. Man, do you know how much work she did when we were over there looking for Barnes? The time and manpower she put into that? Into you?"

"It'd already changed her."

Sam licks his lips, shifts in his seat. "Maybe she'd already changed."

Steve's head snaps to Sam. "What?"

"Hill… She's badass, right? She's hard, competent. Hell of a reputation if Barton's stories are anything to go by. But that can't be all of her. Woman tore down home right?" This time, Sam's the one shrugging uncomfortably. "Maybe she already believed. Maybe this is Maria before… Everything."

Her father, Steve thinks. Her father and the Marines; whatever damn mission brought her to Coulson's attention, then Fury's. Whatever drove her to destroy SHIELD, to have Christmas with Coulson and Barton and Natasha. He glances at Sam again.

"You're saying it was already there."

Sam shrugs. "Maria doesn't do anything she doesn't want to. Don't think you, being you, is going to change that."

"I'm overreacting."

"Yeah, that too," Sam replies. "Why are you telling me anyway?"

"Because you invited me to watch the game."

"And somewhere along the way your mopey face turned it into a Doctor Phil session."

Steve flinches. "I hate daytime TV."

"You know Doctor Phil but not The X-Files? You are no longer in charge of your own cultural education."

And for the first time since Sam picked him up, Steve laughs.


	17. Chapter 17

**December 17, 2014**

_The infant just won't go down. Steve's tried everything, rocking, singing the mobile, even settling in front of the Christmas tree since he seems to really like the sparkle of the lights. Nothing. _

_"He's still awake?" _

_Steve looks up at his wife, at the rings beneath her eyes and the affectionate sparkle in her gaze. The season is always exhausting between shopping and eating and family and now two kids under three… He wouldn't change it for the world. _

_Maria sits gingerly on the edge of the couch, slides back into the cushions. The infant flails and they both hold their breath, hoping hard that the movement won't be followed by a cry. He's a bit of a Mama's boy, their son. He can't complain though. Their daughter tends to cling to him. _

_"How many times did you read _The Night Before Christmas_?" he asks in a low murmur. God, he just wants his son to sleep. They still have stockings to put together and Santa gifts to wrap. The excitement's kept the kids up too late and he knows it'll be an early morning. Neither child has inherited patience. _

_"Four," she replies, dropping her head to his shoulder. It's a bit of a risky move one with consequences since the infant starts flailing in earnest, reaching out for Maria. _

_"Here. I'll take him." _

_Steve sighs, but hands him over. He hates how much Maria does for their kids. It had been her choice, yes, a switch within Stark Industries with the assurance that any danger or security threats would be minimized by the change. They'd done it when she was pregnant with their eldest and –_

_Wait. What? _

_Steve blinks and rubs his eyes. Maria not in security? The deputy director of the biggest international spy association, the woman who had been terrifyingly integral and competent in halting an alien invasion, taking down SHIELD and Hydra _and_ brought his best friend back from whatever insane hellhole he'd been hiding in? And yet here she is, cooing at an infant, looking content and soft and-_

_Where had Maria gone?_

_"Phil called while I was putting her down," she says suddenly, snapping him out of his thoughts. _

_"Oh?" A mission. Good. She looks like she could use one, a reminder of how badass she is and-_

_"He wants you to go to India. Tomorrow, after the kids have opened their presents."_

_"Are you coming?"_

_She looks at him like he has six heads. "And leave the kids? Steve, we talked about this."_

_Did they? When? When had they decided that he would do missions without her and she'd stay at home like a good little housewife? _

_She sighs, bounces the baby a little, stands to rock and pace. His son responds so completely to movement and his mother. "We agreed you were better suited for missions, that Phil needed you more than he needed me. _

_"What about…. The comms," he says, feeling the way he's faltering, feeling like he's stepping on something he's not aware of. It doesn't feel right, this easy way she's cradling their son, the calm way she spoke of their daughter. This isn't Maria, at least not the Maria he likes to think he knows. It has nothing to do with the assumption that Maria wouldn't want children, more than he knows she's ambitious, that she works hard. The Maria he knows would never be content with this. _

_"Steve." She sounds patient and a little patronizing, like he's being deliberately obtuse. "You asked me not to go into the field when I was pregnant. You specifically said that if we were going to do this we couldn't both be super-spies. One of us would have to be home."_

_He hadn't meant this. He couldn't have meant this. "You love your work."_

_"I enjoyed the security sector, yes," she says, flipping the baby again. He just will not go down. But she looks comfortable with an infant in her hands, confident that she won't accidentally drop him. "But you wanted our little girl so much. I couldn't take that away from you."_

_What? He feels his breath catch, hard and sharp in his lungs. This is exactly what he's worried about, exactly what he doesn't want her to do and- _

_Doesn't? What he is worried about? It's already a done deal, already a decision made. _

_"You wanted kids, and I wasn't even sure I could have one. I wasn't going to put her at risk and take that dream away from you."_

_"No."_

_"What?"_

_"I don't want you to give everything up."_

_"I'm not giving anything up, I-"_

_"Maria."_

_She huffs. The baby squawks, feeling the tension in her body. "You asked, Steve. You can't go back on it now. We have two kids. I can't leave them in a position where they won't have parents."_

_"No."_

_"Steve."_

"Steve."

He wakes with a gasp, sitting up to catch his breath. It takes him a minute, then he leans forward, braces his arms on his knees.

"Nightmare?" she asks. She doesn't even sound tired. He hates the idea that he's kept her up.

"No," he replies, but it hadn't really been a dream either, had it? The idea of having kids with Maria is attractive, of course, because she deserves to give some little girl the life she couldn't have, but not at the expense of the career she loves. The career she's good at.

"Steve-"

"It wasn't a nightmare," he says again, because she obviously needs to hear it. "It wasn't a nightmare."

"Okay," she agrees immediately, and he feels her inch closer. She's already a breath away from him and he finds himself wondering if maybe he'd spooned against her back.

_Okay_, he thinks, _take stock._

Her apartment, her bed. He'd shown up at her door after talking to Sam, discombobulated and irrationally worried. He'd had every intention of talking to her, he remembers, but no idea where to start. She'd noticed, of course, and hadn't pushed for more than he'd wanted to say. He'd been comforted by that. She doesn't push because she doesn't want him to push. That's normal.

"Do you want kids?"

Maria makes a choked sound in her throat.

Shit.

That really isn't a good way to start this conversation either. He runs his hands through his hair, agitated and concerned now that he's backed her into an awkward corner.

"We've barely started seeing each other."

"Please?"

He must sound a wreck. It's the only reason for her to tuck herself so completely against his back, aware that he needs the touch and the contact.

"I haven't really thought about it," she answers. "I'm not even sure I can."

He grunts, a question.

"Same thing it always is," she says with a bit of a laugh. "A mission, endless surgeries. I could get pregnant, I think. Carrying to term…"

"Would you risk it?"

Her fingers tighten on the shirt at her his abs, but she doesn't pull back. Instead, she sighs.

"I'm exhausted, and in no way ready for this conversation," she tells him frankly and he takes it for the caveat it is. She could change her mind, either way, and she's reserving the right to do so. He's okay with that. He's not sure, if their situations were reversed, he'd have a concrete answer either.

"With you I'd think about it," she finally says. "I've always assumed you'd want kids, the way you lead, the way you negotiate. The hard line you draw but the easy acceptance you show a lot of things most people from your original era would probably find offensive or off-putting."

"If it meant giving up Stark? If it meant giving up the work you do?"

"I'm already a dangerous parent. I've made enemies, and my name is out there now with Natasha's dumping of SHIELD secrets." There's no malice in the sentence. She doesn't resent Natasha for her actions. Hell, half of the plan had been her idea to begin with.

"Stark doesn't do missions. Not the way SHIELD did, but that doesn't mean that SHIELD enemies, your enemies, won't come looking for me or a kid. My affiliation with the Avengers is also a strike against me. I wouldn't even know how to be a parent, given my examples are few and far between and mostly spies." He feels her shake her head against his back. "What is this about?"

He grips her hands, close and tight, presses her palms against his stomach. "I don't want you to feel you have to change for me. For this."

She snorts against his back. "I'm too old to change."

"You went Christmas shopping. At a mall. Didn't even think about doing it online."

"Seriously?"

The irritation in her voice shouldn't make him feel better, but he relaxes even further. She tries to pull away then, but he holds her hands, keeps her wrapped around him. "Maria. I just want you."

"You've got me," she snaps, and his stomach floods with warmth.

"Here. As you are. Your temper, your worry, the continued accusation that you're cold and unfeeling when that's what you do to keep people from taking advantage of you."

Her body relaxes, presses against him again.

"I want you with your messy past, and terrible father and how hard you've worked to feel like you've escaped that. I want your strength and your secret compassion and the simple easy way you support. I want your prickly outside that plans every mission to the finest detail because you couldn't bear to lose an agent… I just… Maria, I just want you."

The huff she releases is missing the irritation from moments before. "And I don't want to get lost."

"What?"

"I've had enough psychologists tell me that when it comes to relationships I tend to take without giving. That maybe if I was a little more open to my emotions, his emotions, I wouldn't have so many failed ones."

"They're lying."

She chokes on a laugh.

"You aren't always the one who has to change."

"You're biased."

"Entirely," he agrees easily, tugging on one arm until she's come around his side, until he can tug her legs across his lap. His hand slips up her thigh to her hip and despite the fact he doesn't want more than this, he revels in her shiver.

"I don't want to screw this up, Steve. This isn't just losing a guy, it's losing a friend. So I'm trying not to be so… Me."

"I like you."

She laughs. "You won't like when I miss an anniversary because I'm too buried in work and completely forgot. You won't like me if I get hurt and have to spend more than twenty-four hours in any recovery. You won't like me when I haven't been on a mission in too long and I'm totally bored."

It's his turn to laugh. "I've always known it was going to take work. Is going to take work. But." He shrugs.

She sighs. "That's what relationships are."

"Yes."

She reaches for him, cups his face, brings his mouth to hers for a kiss that is soft and sweet. He threads his fingers through her hair, holds her close and deepens the kiss, takes it down to the dark and the hot. He meets her eyes when he pulls away.

"I feel like there's this whole other side of you, Maria. The side that hunts down Christmas trees and brings yellow ribbons instead of stars."

"It's just another piece," she says quietly. He sees her swallow, sees the anxiousness in her eyes and can't help the way his breath catches. He knows that face and he wants to hold out his hands for the vulnerable confession she's about to make.

"Steve," she whispers. "Did you ever think that maybe it's because I'm safe? Because you're safe?"

And oh.

Oh wow.

"Maria, I-"

She shakes her head. "It's not about change," she tells him. "I can't change. But here, with you… I don't have to be strong. I don't have to be cold and emotionless. You won't think less of me for that."

"No."

"No," she agrees breathlessly. "You're safe, Steve. With you, I'm safe."

He kisses her, shifts and turns a little awkwardly until she's on her back and he's hovering over her. He wants to press her into the mattress, to show her what that does to him, how that cracks open his chest. When she says things like that he thinks that she knows how deep his feelings go, that maybe, to him, this isn't just an exploration of what could be more.

He slides his arms beneath her, drops his weight on top of her in part, just to hear her little 'oomph' of surprise and the breathless laugh that follows. He feels it again, the way he wants to make promises to her, beautiful, wonderful promises of forever and a deeper emotion than she's probably experiencing. Instead, he presses his mouth to her shoulder, her neck, the line of her jaw and her cheek.

"Thank you."

She snorts, even as her arms wrap around him, hold him just as close as he's holding her. "You're a sap, Rogers."

"Just for you."

She groans and he grins.

"Shut up and go to sleep."


	18. Chapter 18

**December 18, 2014**

She kind of lets him recover. It makes her sound cold and aloof, maybe the 'cold-hearted bitch' moniker she's worked very hard to cultivate, nurture and earn. But she thinks they both needed to recover.

Kids. They talked about kids. God. It's left her shaky too, more than a little off-balance. She feels like she can't get a handle on herself and she hates that. But she also can't sit back and say she had no clue. It had been a factor, of course. The knowledge, the certainty that Steve is exactly the type of man to want kids someday. There are considerations, of course – safety, genetics, how the hell Captain freaking America can raise a kids in the kind of world they live in – but she's always just assumed he'd figure those things out.

And it's why his insistence on wanting her seems so utterly baffling. Children have never been part of her life plan. Ever. She knows the world they live in and can easily and honestly say she has absolutely no idea how anyone could want to bring a child into the chaos. She can't say she's ever even liked kids with their jam hands and temper tantrums.

But God. He'd sounded so raw, so vulnerable, like he had indeed had a brutal nightmare. So yes, okay, she'd given him the answer he'd wanted to hear. It's not her fault, she thinks. But then again, that hadn't turned out to be the point of the conversation, had it? A precursor maybe, a way to ease her into the real issue.

_I don't want you to feel you have to change for me._

She can honestly say it's never really crossed her mind. A lot of things have shifted, maybe, since that innocuous candy cane had shown up on her desk, but she's not sure she could go as far as to really say she's changed. Spending time with him has made her shift around a few of her priorities, maybe, and yes, she can see how that can be misinterpreted as changing, even maybe changing for him, but it doesn't feel like it. Not to her, anyway.

She's just… never slowed down. There's never been time. She's always had to be on her guard, always on alert and it's never enough time to think about Christmas trees or the gifts to go beneath them. Her father, the Marines, SHIELD; she's never stopped, not from the day she understood there was an option. Steve, however, is safe. She knows that. He never sets out to be anything less than the best version of himself. Human and fallible, yes, but still the very best of men. The epitome of the super soldier she knows Erskine had been hoping to create.

Captain America.

She tries not to think about it, actually. It was different when they were friends, when the pull was mainly guilt for very nearly sending him to a real and much more final watery grave. Then, it had been about making it up to him, maybe even proving her competence by sending him information on Bucky. But dating Captain America? Yeah, that still leaves her carved out pretty raw. And she is damn good at avoiding acknowledging her weaknesses.

That fear, the oily churning in her gut, the continued feeling of standing on shaky, utterly terrifying grounds, makes her test him one simple word that she knows he will understand: _veto_.

It doesn't take him long to respond. It never does. _Roger that._

The ease that flows through her is gratifying and terrifying. It's also interrupted by the happy chime of a second message.

_Tomorrow, Maria. Don't make me hunt you down._

And oh. Oh, he knows, doesn't he? He gets it. He gets her. Hadn't that been her own damn point? He understands that she needs space, but that she's better at forgetting just how much space she's taking. The shiver drills pleasantly down her spine as the idea forms, solidifies. It takes her less than a minute to find the contact she's looking for. She hits speed dial.

"Barton, Hill. I'm pulling in that favour."

* * *

><p><em>My grandest apologies for continuing to forget to update here :( <em>

_For those to whom this matters, I will finish it. I will. Because now it's a point of pride. I hate leaving fics unfinished if I can help it. _


	19. Chapter 19

**December 19, 2014**

When Steve hears nothing from Maria the next morning he resigns himself to the fact that he will, indeed, have to hunt her down. It's a weird feeling, a mix of reassurance that some things, apparently, will never change and the resignation that this may be something he battles in the long term. Not that he necessarily has anything against wooing Maria. It's all, he realizes, incredibly complicated. And here she'd thought she wanted easy.

Either way, he goes after her. Well, kind of. It's not like finding Maria at noon on a Friday is a difficult puzzle. He is surprised to find her in worn jeans, pulling on a thick coat.

"Going somewhere?"

Her head comes up, but her shock translates quite quickly into mischievous pleasure. "To get you, actually."

Is she always going to surprise him like this? "Oh?"

"I called in a favour," she goes on, yanking up her zipper. "Turns out, Barton sucks at poker. He also has acres on his ranch and a slew of paintball guns." He watches in awe and wonder as the childish pleasure becomes heated challenge. "Care for a match?"

His blood thunders in his ears as he watches her, as she throws her bag over her shoulder and comes towards him. Her eyes are still sparkling, mischief and challenge. He reaches for her because she just- she looks… open. Pleased with herself.

"Maria?"

She's already rising on her toes, moving into the strength and width of his body. The kiss she bestows upon him is most certainly not the kiss of a woman who is confused or repelled by him or their conversation two nights ago. His hands come up quickly, easily, band around her body as he gives her free and easy reign of their kiss, the easy slide of it, the bite of her teeth, the slide of her tongue.

"Mm, okay," she says breathlessly. "We're going to be late. I don't want to be driving back into the city in the dark."

He will. Oh, he will if it means he can have more of this Maria. This beautiful shine in her face, the hard challenge of her eyes.

"Come on, Rogers," she says on a laugh, already pulling away. "Time to see if you've still got it.

He stumbles when she steps away, leaves her grinning, laughing at him. He's stunned by what he feels is a complete turn around, happy, joyful and competitive where he expected reserve, reluctance. He forces himself to steady, to clear his throat. "I think I can take you, Lieutenant."

Her eyebrow wings up as she leads the way from her office, throwing a wave at her PA. "Henry, I'm heading into the field."

It's a code, so obviously, because the man merely offers her a solemn nod. Steve, however, gets a feral grin that makes him shiver.

"Good luck, Captain," Henry says cheerfully.

Steve has the sudden, uncomfortable feeling that he's been played.

. . . . .

She looks formidable. He's having flashbacks to her on the bridge of the helicarrier, the computers blaring, engines on fire, and her solid, unwavering calm in the face of it all. Ruthlessly powerful and totally in control. She looks it now as she double-checks the paintball gun strapped to her chest.

"No holds barred," she says with a smile that's mostly teeth. "No holding out on me."

He thinks he'd promise her anything to keep her looking so fierce. God, he has to get a handle on himself if he's going to even stand a chance in this forest.

"Half an hour's grace time. Then it's on."

"Teams?"

Her eyes spark, flare. "Need a hand, Captain?"

She's trying for smug teasing, but there's something else there. She's glad for this; one-on-one with Captain America. A chance to show him she can take him, prove herself. And oh, oh he really hopes that isn't what this is. She has nothing to prove to him, ever. Even if he opens his big mouth and says stupid things about kids and changes and-

It must be all over his face because hers shifts. Irritation comes first, a little roll of her eyes and a definitely not little punch to his arm. It softens after that though, just a little. Just enough. So he makes a show of checking his own gun, pushing himself into a battle-ready mindset. He doesn't really care who wins, but he most certainly does not want to be eviscerated.

"Just making sure there aren't any surprises in those woods."

The irritation falls off her face, gets replaced by amusement. "Don't flatter yourself." Then she's stepping away, already headed for the edge of the woods. "Half an hour truce, then no mercy."

He reaches out, catches her elbow, drags her in for a kiss that is hard, biting, wet, ruthless. She's panting when the part. Her eyes are dark as she wipes the back of a hand across her mouth, laughs a little. He's already turning, jogging for the tree line.

"No mercy, Lieutenant."

In reality, they demolish each other, paint-spattered clothes and what will likely be a rainbow of bruises underneath. But as they drive back into the city, Steve behind the wheel while Maria dozes against the window, he thinks that the thing between them that had felt so brittle to him this morning, that had sent him chasing after her instead of waiting her out, feels a little more solid.


	20. Chapter 20

**December 20, 2014**

Oh, everything hurts. Literally everything. Maria groans and stretches, pushes against the resistance of her muscles. She feels the smile spread slowly across her face. Nothing like a thorough workout to leave her blissfully worn out.

"Now there's a sight a man could get used to."

She hums as her muscles relax, watches Steve come towards her, two coffees in hand. His eyes slip over her body, warm and languid. Definitely appreciative. "Morning."

His smile is a thing of beauty, his gaze leaving her shivering, her face warm. She lets her hand slip gently over her stomach, finds where her sleep shirt had ridden up to expose a strip of her stomach. The look on her face makes her feel bold, maybe a bit shameless.

"Sore?" he asks as he slides the two mugs to the bedside table, slips his fingers to her skin.

"Wonderfully so," she answers, her mind flashing to the two of them, tangled together and sore for an entirely different reason. She makes herself glance at the mugs, away from the lust on his face. "For me?"

"In a minute," he replies. "This view is too good to pass up."

"You most certainly do a girl's ego good, Rogers."

He laughs. At least, she thinks it's a laugh. It's a little bit more of a low rumble as he settles on the bed and leans into her. She thinks this is the kind of moment she'll sear into her memory, weighted with heat instead of darkness. The kind of beautiful and intimate moment she wants to forever associate with the holiday season.

"There's nothing girlish about you, Lieutenant," he murmurs to her collarbone, fingers slipping up to play against her ribs. "And a woman like you doesn't need the compliments."

Her body arches under his touch, greedy when she should be reserved. She can't help herself though, not under his singular attention. Her hand lifts, clutches at his bicep as he finally leans in and locks his mouth against hers. Her body curves into his, shifts with him until he's cradled wonderfully between her thighs. Her arms slides up until she can palm his neck, until she can feel the hair at the base of his skull. He's the one that shivers at the touch, that presses closer, harder against her.

"Maria," he murmurs into her mouth before he moves to brush a kiss against her cheek. He follows the path to her ear, breathes her name into the shell.

Her body responds, arches to press against the hard wall of his chest. Her fingers grip, grasp, try and deal with the emotions and sensations crashing through her. It's a strange sort of overwhelming desperation, one that tells her when they decide to do this, to spend a day in bed exploring each other, it will be completely and utterly devastating.

For now, however, she isn't quite sure what to do with it all, the intensity and the desperation and the way she finds herself moving against him without a conscious thought. She's reaching for more, her nails digging into his back as he hisses in her ear. He feels it, she knows, and the moment it penetrates through his own fog his hands gentle, try and sooth. It's not what she wants and the keen she releases tells him so. A sound rumbles in his chest as he mouth returns to hers, tries to coax and soften where she wants to bite and devour. His hand slides into her hair, cups her skull as he tries to pin her in place. But Maria is having none of it and she wraps a leg around his, flipping them neatly.

"Hey."

His voice is so soft, like she's skittish and not completely capable of kicking his ass, even here. The slight irritation wars with her complete need to show him, to tell him something she's not even completely sure of. It means she realizes her miscalculation a second too late, realizes that even in a position of potential power and control, she's lost her leverage. He tangles his hand in her hair again, uses it to pull her into him, pins her hips with his other arm, strong and sure. She struggles, of course, but he's got her and she is absolutely no match for his brute strength.

"Hey," he says again, a low rumble in her ear. "What's this?"

She doesn't know. She really doesn't know. He's warm and here, bringing her coffee and looking at her like she hung the moon the morning after she totally kicked his ass in a pretend field op… It's all crashing around her, the realization that she wants this like very few things she's wanted before layered on top of the absolute clarity that this could actually _work_.

But she has no idea how to say that, how to communicate to him that she needs this, she can't lose this, that he means so very, very much to her and she is simultaneously absolutely terrified that she's going to screw this up, that she's going to keep the wrong secret – like Barnes and Natasha and God, what is she going to do when Nat finds the Winter Soldier? – and he's going to just hate her? How had she even let him dig so deep, get so far into her? When had she let him curl around her heart, safe behind him and not just that wall of ice she spent decades building?

"Maria."

God, she's scaring him. She can hear it. She's not crying – her face isn't wet – but she can feel the ball in her throat, the hiccup in her breath.

"Shit. Maria."

"No." It's a gasp, an inhale, and she grips at his hair, his neck to keep them both in place. He grunts, but then his arm slides from her hair, wraps across her shoulders and he squeezes.

She tenses on a gasp for a split second before everything goes limp. She feels strangely like he's holding her together, like maybe those crashing waves of fear and emotion and something-she-won't-call-love are starting to settle so long as he just holds her like this. So long as he has her.

"Okay," he whispers, leans his head against hers. "Okay."

_I've got you_.

She's not sure how long they stay like that, how long she actually lets Captain freaking America hold her like a damn baby, but she can't deny the way her breath eases in her lungs, the way it doesn't feel as overwhelming. She feels like she can sort through this, that she can settle and breathe again.

"Steve," she finally says, then clears her throat because she sounds utterly wrecked. "Steve."

He lets her pull back and God, she's scared the hell out of him, hasn't she? She tries to soften her hands, to brush them gently across the broad expanse of his shoulders. He relaxes beneath her, his arms sliding so he's stroking her back instead.

"Okay?" he asks and the worry, concern, the care is so bare and raw in his eyes. She leans in, kisses him slow and soft, everything it hadn't been before. She sighs against his mouth, arches like a cat into his hands.

"Yeah," she says, even as she buries her face in his neck again, embarrassed and a little weak in the aftermath of so very much.

"I've got you," she hears him murmur, feels the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallows. "I've got you."

"Yeah," she agrees, just as quiet, right into his ear. "Me too."

* * *

><p><em>I... am not totally sure what happened here. Originally they were supposed to go to a Christmas market because December 20th was a Saturday and they have a standing Saturday market date but then Maria kind of started having this panic attack thing and it all went from there. <em>

_Errors are mine. _

_Thanks for reading_!


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